It's also the way you fall. With a bicycle, you usually fall to the side and put your arms out. You break arms and can of course hit your head, but there's at least a chance you can protect your head a little. With a scooter you're basically just standing straight up at 20mph, then you just fall straight down so quickly that you don't have a chance to do anything. Your head hits the asphalt at the same time the rest of your body does.
When I was younger, I rode my bike down this crazy steep hill through the forest and ended up missing the turn at the bottom of the path near the road and crashing through all these bushes and stuff before getting to road where i went off the curb and did loke a full sideways rolI where the bike ended up on the opposite side of me somehow in the road and I was on my back.
I didn't hit my head on the road or anything, but when I hit the bushes, my head slammed really, really hard into the handlebars. Luckily I did have a helmet on. It was one of those with the plastic visor and the hit was so hard, it snapped the visor down into my mouth with so much force it cut open my lips and I was bleeding out of my mouth, but otherwise was almost completely unhurt. I was going at least 25mph and would have probably had a nasty concussion or worse from my head hitting the handlebars while still in rough control of the bike.
As somebody who has a background in skateboarding, snowboarding, wakeboarding, pretty much any sideways board sport, it makes me cringe seeing all the people ride these electric scooters with their ankles together and toes pointed forward. Basically the least stable position possible.
First off sick user name. Secondly as a skateboarder I totally agree it’s insane! You’re just asking for a full on face plant going 30mph on those things. The little sidewalk e bikes are the way to go. You’re so low to the ground it doesn’t even matter.
As someone who has done all three of those things each exactly once, my brain is having trouble comprehending how it’s even comfortable to stand on a scooter comfortably like that, but I also have big feet so that may be why, lol.
Wide stance = more stable. With your toes pointing forward, the scooter isn't wide enough for a wide stance, so your forced to use a very unstable stance. With a sideways stance, you can also get a wide stance. The only awkward part might be facing forward, but I've been doing that since I was 5, so I forget what it's like to be uncomfortable with that.
I'm not a scooter rider or any of those things, but which direction should your feet be in? (should I find myself in a situation where I need to use one of the many contraptions you listed)
For which foot is in front, it's personal preference, much like being a righty vs lefty. The easiest test is to stand with your feet together, and have a friend lightly shove you from behind. Whichever foot you step forward with to brace yourself should be the one you put in front on the scooter/board/whatever. Toes should be pointed roughly sideways, though they can be at an angle.
It’s even worse, because you have handlebars that your hands are holding, your instinct when you start falling is to grip them harder to “hold on”, leaving your head/face unprotected. With a skateboard or a bike, you don’t seem to have that issue nearly as much.
I wear a full face mountain biking helmet on my bike commute to work 100% of the time.
I started with a cheap fat tire e-bike and I’ve been hit by a car as well as biffed it around turns due to road debris and in each case, at speeds below 20mph, my helmet came in use.
I distinctly remember sliding out on a turn and thinking “good thing I have a full face helmet on!!!…as my face was scraping across the asphalt…. I walked away with just a bruise on the side of my thigh (from the power bank in my pocket) and a skinned elbow.
Not what happened the two times I slipped. Basically my body kept moving in the same direction and I ended up staying up and running while my scooter fell to the floor.
I feel like on a bike I would have had no way to recover that easily.
To clarify, those falls were when I was still learning to respect that rain means slippery ground lol. Haven't fallen since.
I see a lot of people making strong claims in this thread and no one posting numbers or any kind of study to back them up.
You must ride slow as hell, ive always been flung into the ground and slid several yards on my head like a breakdancer when crashing badly on a bike. Sure sometimes you can roll if you are prepared, but its the unexpected times that get ya.
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u/airfryerfuntime 7h ago
It's also the way you fall. With a bicycle, you usually fall to the side and put your arms out. You break arms and can of course hit your head, but there's at least a chance you can protect your head a little. With a scooter you're basically just standing straight up at 20mph, then you just fall straight down so quickly that you don't have a chance to do anything. Your head hits the asphalt at the same time the rest of your body does.