Many cities and towns are catching on to a new trend with the provision of bikes and scooters either as a public service or as a business. A new study has found that the electronic bikes and scooters are having a higher rate of serious injury than their traditional counterpart of the pedal bicycle.
The study looked at emergency room data from 200 through 2017 and found that e-bike users were more likely to suffer internal injuries and be hospitalized compared to pedal-powered bicyclists. E-scooter riders had higher incidents of concussions.
The study questions also whether or not introducing these faster individual vehicles without sufficient infrastructure for them to be used on has played a role. If an e-bike can go 20 miles per hour but needs to be ridden on a sidewalk, then the smaller surface and pedestrian interaction with those higher speeds can be dangerous.
An abstract of the study is as follows:
Original article
Injuries associated with electric-powered bikes and scooters: analysis of US consumer product data
1.Charles J DiMaggio1,2,
2.Marko Bukur1,2,
3.Stephen P Wall3,
4.Spiros G Frangos1,2,
5.Andy Y Wen4
Reference: https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2019/11/11/injuryprev-2019-043418.full
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