New research suggests riders and city planners need to make changes to keep people safe.
Raja, who is executive vice chair of emergency medicine at Mass General Brigham, said injured older riders he treats often spontaneously decided to rent an e-bike.
“They will walk out of a building and see a rental and say, ‘I will use one of these,’” he said. “That spontaneity means they don’t have a helmet or much experience.”
So, skill issue.
Remind me of this video https://youtu.be/2JYJF9L5YW4
Ok, so yes, I agree completely that older riders are more susceptible to crashing on an e-bike. We have enough evidence from the Netherlands to know that this isn’t about infrastructure.
However, the article is a bit of a mess because it mentions rental e-bikes and other classes of bikes that you’d never see in a rental program.
Now, rental bikes, e-bike, and e-scooters come with an additional challenge: they aren’t set up to rider, and have a different “feel” to what the rider might experience with their own bike.
When I read "‘I didn’t ride the bike that fast but I couldn’t stop it from hitting the pole.’ Or they hit a car.”, to me, it’s entirely possible that these rental bikes (which are much heavier than most standard bikes/e-bikes), don’t have the same brake system, or the rider isn’t used to the brake feel of that bike.
I’m an experienced cyclist and e-scooter rider, but rentals feel completely foreign. They don’t react like mine, don’t stop like mine, don’t accelerate like mine, they don’t roll like mine, etc.
It’s no wonder that the risk goes way up in rental riders who are also not experienced and/or elderly.
Around where I live, I see a lot of older folks on e-bikes. This is a GOOD THING as it gets them out, gives them independence, and enables them to explore their community with ease.
However, I’d say that a good majority are riding fat tire, folding e-bikes, which handle differently to a standard-sized urban bike (and they are significantly heavier!). The learning curve and experience needed to ride them is a bit higher because of that.
Old people do have less control - this is the case with cars and bikes - but while they would never get up to dangerous speeds anymore on a normal bike, an ebike empowers them to go way faster than they can control - just like a car would.
Whenever I ride my bike, I’m really scared of grannies (and grandpas) on e-bikes. They have no concept of speed, no situational awareness and no control. Just like with cars, but you’re not even safe on cycle paths.
skill issue, but they blame the vehicle because they can’t be wrong.
Kinda like the great gas pedal scandal 13 years ago.
I’m definitely out of the loop about a great gas pedal scandal, could you elaborate or post a link to something relevant?
Basically around 2010 some people crashed their Toyota cars because the gas pedal got stuck to the floor, and there was a huge lawsuit over it. People blamed the new drive by wire throttle as the fault, saying it would get stuck at full power. Even NASA got involved at some point to look at claims that cosmic rays could be causing a bit flip that makes the car go full send.
While there were factors that may have contributed to one or more of the accidents, such as carpets getting caught on the gas pedal, with the result being every manufacturer now has to have hooks to secure the driver’s side floor mat from sliding into the pedals (and dealerships will remove any unsafe floor mats during service), to the gas pedal design being redone on every car to make it harder to get stuck like that (all gas pedals are bottom hinged now), and the fact that modern cars have to override the gas with the brake, so left foot braking maneuvers and heel toe downshifts in manual cars are now virtually impossible, the real problem is mainly skill issue.
Many of the drivers involved in these accidents were old, diabetic, or both - two groups of people that have diminished proprioception, that is, the ability to know where your limbs are. They will tell you with a life to bet they pressed all the way on the brake, because when you can’t feel where your feet are, your brain fills in the gaps and assumes, but they really were pressed on the gas thinking they were pressed on the brake, then monkey brain takes over as the car launches forward (or backward), and they press harder on the “brake”, when they’re really on the gas and that’s how they full send it into the front of a shopping center building. But, you know, it’s definitely not the driver’s fault. Obviously something’s wrong with the car.
Toyota was the focus because the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Camry are extremely popular cars among normal people and older people.
he said. “People, when they come in and I ask what happened, they say ‘I didn’t ride the bike that fast but I couldn’t stop it from hitting the pole.’ Or they hit a car.”
You squeeze the brakes with your hands; it’s not rocket surgery. Even the most bare-bones ebike will have brakes capable of braking hard enough to stop abruptly if needed.
This is less an issue of ebikes and more an issue that people don’t know how to ride a bicycle properly. People should not be getting on an ebike if they don’t even know the basic fundamentals of riding a bike.
‘I didn’t ride the bike that fast but I couldn’t stop it from hitting the pole.’
Target fixation with a side of panic inaction. Also, they could stop it from hitting the pole. They didn’t stop it from hitting the pole. Take some responsibility for your actions.
