Not only. I live in Norway, where pedestrians have right of way and drivers are extremely careful. Discounting the risk from cars, there's still more personal danger to users of scooters as opposed to cars. If you have an accident on a scooter, you'll get scrapes, bruises, broken bones. As compared to a car, where unless you've really screwed up, you're unlikely to take any injuries at all.
Microplastics from heavy vehicles scrubbing away their tires is a bigger issue than tailpipe emissions, which is why tailpipe emissions are the only thing focused on with regards to regulatory standards. Can’t have people thinking BEVs are similar/worse for the environment than a small car.
They are more dangerous exactly because of the existence of cars. Cars are a small fortress that makes others less safe while keeping its contents safer. Unless they hit another fortress.
That only makes sense if you cycle among cars, but that makes cars dangerous, not bikes. If you remove cars out of equation by cycling on pavement or cycle route, the danger is gone.
Pedestrians get hit by cars all the time yet walking is rated the safest.
Pedestrians don't get hit by cars quite as much as cyclist, proportionally to their number, because cyclists are right in the street sharing the space with cars, trucks and buses. Cycling on the sidewalk is not allowed, and cycling lanes are often very dangerous. I understand that this chart is talking about danger to the passengers, not to others.
Hit a pothole going 25mph in your car. Hit the same pothole going 25mph on your scooter. I'll come visit you in the hospital after the scooter one and we can talk about how cars are obviously safer.
I ride an electric scooter, all it takes is one crack in the road that I'm less than prepared for and I'm going down hard.
That is a good point, mine is the second variety, electric one similar to the ones you see littering any major Urban area waiting to be rented. Although even the largest scooter is still far less safe over a pothole or around a rainy curve than a car, typical accident in the car you mess up the car and get a bruise from the airbag, but a typical scooter accident can be a lot more gnarly.
I think most people in the USA refer to the third item as a moped, which only gives you two categories for scooter. Scooter and electric scooter, and then moped and electric moped.
The roads are shit here. So badly cracked that I vibrate violently when I try to ride my scooter over them at like 10km/h. And that's while dodging potholes.
Heeeeell no. I had I minor fall on a scooter last week. I slipped at medium speed because of an uneven wet floor. I'm still fucked up and can't walk properly
Tell you what, you drive your bike into a car and maybe the concussion will change your thinking enough to make it believable that bikes are more dangerous.
We're not rating danger for the damn planet here. It's obviously danger for the user - that's the one who's buying the product. Why would anyone care about the safety of others over their own safety?
I will literally shit inside any human being I don't personally know (and some that I do know) if it makes my life 0.02% more comfortable. What's your point?
The tone and content of this message indicate a severe lack of empathy and a high degree of self-centeredness, verging on sociopathic tendencieslulz, you know how to underscore a perspective right there! I wonder if that is a brand new sentence…
No need to indulge but since you got me thinking about self interest and empathy:
If you had the opportunity to gain an extra hour of sleep the next time you wanted it, but in return, someone you don't know would experience moderate discomfort for ten years. Would you be willing to make that trade-off?
We're talking about me now? No. Of course not. Just like I wouldn't knowingly buy a car whose making process involves some random people being shit inside of. I find hyperbolic exaggerations funny and I like to use them for making a point.
The point was - you don't purchase things for others, you purchase them for yourself. A car can be a major money spender - you buy it because it gives YOU safety, and it's silly to act like you're a bad person for spending your money in a way that benefits you. But some Knights of the Broken Tire are out here pretending like they're damn selfless, like they spent all their house money on housing the homeless not their own family, and like they chose to carry that 2 year old through traffic on a bycicle, not a fucking minivan. Fuck right off with this hypocritical shit. It's okay to want the safety of yourself and your family, that's how the entire world works. You're not gonna get blamed for buying a car, drop the selfless, holier-than-thou act, nobody's buying it.
Planes are safer per mile but not per trip. One could argue that if people spent the same amount of time in both then it would be far more fatalities on aircrafts.
Cars are technically the major source of danger for bikes and scooters.
also a fun fact, while commercial aviation is very safe, private planes are much more dangerous, being almost as dangerous per mile as a regular car (and you get a lot more miles per hour of travel)
private planes are much more dangerous, being almost as dangerous per mile as a regular car
that is because they are operated by semi-competent people who often have less practice then they have in car.
imagine how competent driver you are when you have your fresh license. it is the same with piloting license. and now imagine you are a hobby pilot and can afford to spend in the cockpit 3 hours per month. your skill is not really going to get significantly better. you are probably flying airplane that is at the end of its life, because that is only one you can afford, and there may be no one keeping an eye on you telling you "this is not how we do it, it is risky, dangerous, and you will get someone killed".
Sometimes I walk to work; sometimes I drive my car; other times i ride a bicycle. Whichever option I pick, I hate anyone who isn't doing the same thing.
That may be the most American thing anyone has ever said!
Also, the same therapist told me that she has a number of alcoholic patients who moved to New York City simply because they knew there was a good 24 hour mass transit system and they wouldn't have to drive drunk.
I really wish the x axis was average distance traveled and the y axis was danger.
I get that the way this graph was designed was for humor and to highlight hot air balloons, but if you’re looking for a safe vehicle for a specific distance, it really doesn’t help out in any way. It probably wouldn’t be safe to drive my car across the Atlantic Ocean.
motorcycles should 100% be in the zone of practicality, especially with modern sleek electric ones.
skateboards should be the bridge between practical and recreational, provided you have sensible infrastructure and short distances they have distinct benefits.
it annoys me to no end how motorcycles and mopeds are viewed as dangerous, when every single time you hear about people being hurt on them it's because they're fucking idiots who tried to do a backflip infront of a semitruck
Horses are technically more dangerous to ride than motorcycles. It’s just that motorcycles attract a kind of people who like doing backflips in front of a semi truck.
I'm here to say that if there's snow, skis win on practicality. Almost every winter, there's at least one day when you will have some people skiing to work in Oslo, a city of 700 000 inhabitants, with a metro system. Because when there's 10 cm of snow in the streets, skis are the quickest and easiest way to get anywhere.
Even with heavier propulsion, blimps and rigid airships are completely beholden to the weather as a light breeze can completely prevent landing or cause crashes.
I'm not sure I agree that unicycles are safer than roller blades. But that's probably because I am comfortable on roller blades and don't know how to unicycle, so for me, the opposite is true.
As both an extreme unicyclist & rollerblader, unicycles are actually incredibly safe. More safe than a bicycle. The top speed is very slow comparatively, and if you fall... You fall on your feet. Forwards? Feet. Backwards? Feet. Sideways? Feet. If your feet were strapped into the pedals (like rollerblades...) it would be a deathtrap.
Trains and planes and others are a bit wonky for this chart. If I needed to take get to work, train and plane immediately resort to walking the entire way (unless get in a car, on a bike, fall just after). So while traveling across the country for a trip may be convenient on a train... Wait, unless I only have the weekend or a short work trip/vacation, because then it would take to much time and be inconvenient. Tried to find an example. Travel to Las Vegas from Nashville. Plane, ~3 hour flight plus let's say 2 hour travel and airport bs. So 5 hours there, 5 back. Driving: 26 hours (each way). Walking: Death by dehydration in desert. Train: not even listed as there was no routes.
I'd guess it's because unicycles are used in a much narrower range of circumstances. Few people are being hit by cars commuting to work on a unicycle, nor are there many mountain-unicyclists getting injured.
You joke (I think?), but the people I know that do unicycling (including mountain-bike style unicycling, and unicycling Himalayan trails, and crazy stuff like that) do do an insane amount of training 😆
You’d have to. Anyone who mountain bikes regularly knows how much work it is to climb some trails with 500% gear range. I can’t imagine the work involved with a single gear to climb on some trails. Brutal.
This is probably another reason why unicycles are less dangerous. People I know that do mountain biking end up in hospital from time to time from coming off at speed, speed on most unicycles is probably a lot lower. Though I thought geared unicycles existed?
There are basically no unsafe ways to get off of a unicycle. You can fall in any direction and just end up standing next to your unicycle. Compare that to a bicycle "over the handle bars"-accident.
They are also significantly more dangerous than an airplane though. The skill and speed needed to cope with an engine failure is a lot less forgiving and helicopters nearly always spend more time at lower altitude. Also the number of mechanical failures that result in everybody aboard essentially guaranteed dying is higher in a helicopter. Especially vs a small airplane with a parachute (parachute systems on helicopters are extremely rare especially due to altitude requirements)
Trains, scooters and/ motorcycles are convenient for travel? I mean sure, if you never carry anything anywhere and/or you love how every other person in the world smells after they finish their 12 hour shift of breaking big rocks with smaller rocks.
xkcd
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