The median age of injured conventional bicycle riders was 30 (IQR, 13-53) years vs 39 (IQR, 25-55) years for e-bicyclists (P < .001). Scooter riders had a median age of 11 (IQR, 7-24) years at the time of injury vs 30 (IQR, 20-45) years for e-scooter riders (P < .001) (Table 1 and Figure 3). As a group, those injured from EV accidents were significantly older than those injured from conventional vehicles (age, 31 vs 27 years; P < .001) (eTable 1 in Supplement 1).
e-Bicycles have lowered barriers to cycling for older adults, a group at risk for physical inactivity.9,10 Biking has clear-cut physical and cognitive health benefits for older adults, so this extension of biking accessibility to older e-bicyclists should be considered a boon of the new technology.22,23 However, as injured e-bicycle riders are older than conventional bicyclists, the unique safety considerations for older cyclists should be a focus of ongoing study.
There is a popular conception that ebikes are ridden recklessly on streets and sidewalks by youths, doing dangerous stunts, riding against traffic, not wearing helmets, and incurring serious injury to themselves and others as a result. This conception is often used to justify legislation to restrict or ban ebike use by minors. However, the data suggests quite the opposite, as it is older riders which are racking up injuries.
The data does not support restrictions on ebikes, but rather their wholesale adoption, especially for audiences which are at risk of inactivity or disadvantaged by a lack of transportation options. Ebikes are not at odds with conventional bicycles.
The California Bicycle Coalition offers this succinct summary:
“We think this backlash against e-bikes is the wrong direction for what we want for safer ways for people biking and sharing the road,” said Jared Sanchez, the policy director for the California Bicycle Coalition. “We don’t believe that adding restrictions for people riding e-bikes is the solution.”
They also have a page on how to fight against “bikelash”, aka naysayers of bicycles and bikes: https://www.calbike.org/talking-back-to-bikelash/
Younger individuals should also be more likely to walk-it-off and go unreported.
We obtained data on micromobility vehicle injuries from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), a comprehensive database managed by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.15 The NEISS collates injury data associated with consumer products from approximately 100 emergency departments (EDs) across the US and its territories.
While I don’t agree with regulating the hell out of ebikes simply because people are reckless I also know how I used to fall off a bike and never see a doctor in my younger years while I would likely need to see one now.
This is a good point about data availability, and is certainly a caveat with the study. That said, I personally think legislation needs to be data driven, and when there’s a lack of available data about a given topic, the absolute wrong answer is for politicians to gesticulate wildly and give into whatever moral panic happens to be sweeping through the constituency.
It’s for this reason that I find that bills limiting minors on ebikes to be particularly pernicious.
My biggest issue with the whole thing is how cars don’t have the same limitations. If both were given restrictions to speed and such I could see this as safety focused as opposed to shock at a new thing vs indifference with old thing.
I’d also add that, if after an accident you can “walk it off”, why should that even be relevant for policy decisions?
People “walk off” injuries that they should have treated all the time. You can ignore strains and sprains, but doing so may damage the body in permanent ways that come up years later.
If instead you can seen a doctor about that banged up wrist and they caught the issues you may have been able to rehab it before permanent damage was done.
Its one of the reasons “free” healthcare is so much cheaper to operate than for profit. People avoid paying for doctors visits as long as possible, which in aggregate means small, easy health problems grow into hard, expensive health problems.
In America, going to the doctor is very expensive and many younger people can’t afford basic shit like x-rays, never mind more advanced scans, treatment, surgery, etc.
Ate shit doing just under 30, but Ma’s a nurse and had everything needed at home :p
Kids don’t usually get e-bikes because those are way more expensive.
I can’t speak to the proportion of minors on acoustic bikes versus ebikes, but there are definitely under-18s with ebikes, in numbers ranging from “noticeable” to “common”, if I may draw from anecdotes in my area and reports from around the country.
Usually people buy a cheap bike for their kids or a cheap scooter. Why spend 1000 on a thing that will be too small for him or her in 6 months? But you are right. Well to do people in well to do places will give their kids dangerous toys. Similarly as an example, in San Diego CA, you can rent a bird scooter to ride around town. You can be any age because the rental is thru an app on your or someone else’s phone. Ultimate it is possible for a minor to ride a scooter. Elsewhere, you see that less because electric scooters are expensive with respect to having fun. With respect to mobility to go to work or to the uni or shopping, e scooters and bikes are a bargain. So I would think that it depends on the locality.
All valid points, especially on sizing of kids bikes. For e-scooters, though, I’m not aware of there being substantially different sizes. If most public e-scooter program have only one size yet still works for a broad range of riders, then apparently fitment isn’t as big of a concern than on bikes.
This YT video by OhTheUrbanity describes the cost differences between using a public e-scooter rental for general mobility versus buying a private e-scooter outright, with rentals being more expensive. They also observed at the time – it’s a 3 year old video – that e-scooters can be purchased for CAD$800 or less. I think that’s around USD$600, and other basic models can be had for less nowadays.
Given this calculus, it seems plausible that even for households with constrained disposable income, an e-scooter wouldn’t necessarily be an extravagance and would not quickly be grown out of for a child. I personally don’t use e-scooters, but I can see why parents might consider a cheap 15 mph (25 kph) e-scooter and helmet for their child, in spite of the injury statistics, if the alternative is having to drive them around, costing gasoline and a free-range upbringing.
This study appears to only discuss injuries to riders, not to pedestrians.
This is correct, although it may be for good reason: data for non-rider ebike injuries and deaths is not collected through the existing means, which focus mostly on motor vehicle collisions. The NHTSA’s 2022 data report has this note:
Prior to 2022, motorized bicycles were collected as motor vehicles and classified as motorcycles in FARS and CRSS, and their operators and passengers were captured as motorists. Beginning in 2022, FARS and CRSS are no longer collecting motorized bicycles as motor vehicles. Consequently, operators and passengers of motorized bicycles will be captured as pedalcyclists when involved in a motor vehicle traffic crash. Any traffic crash involving only motorized bicycle(s) will no longer be captured in FARS or CRSS.
Essentially, the national data sources available today don’t record bicycle-vs-bicycle or bicycle-vs-pedestrian injuries or fatalities. Some states or municipalities might record that data though. For example: NYC’s 2021 data shows 2 pedestrian deaths from a bicycle collision, and 123 pedestrian deaths from a motor vehicle collision. But no data there on nonfatal pedestrian injuries caused by bicyclists.
A study looking at just a handful of municipalities would not be useful to draw larger conclusions. But seeing as the data collection at the national level was expressly designed to give insight into the most pressing injuries/fatalities category – those involving motor vehicles – I’m not holding by breath for expanded data collection, since bicycle-involves pedestrian collisions are at least an order of magnitude less of a problem than motor vehicle collision.
