everyone should realize that e-scooters are a physically risky form of transport, especially when driven above about 20km/h.
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@adub yikes
@Cassandra the Toronto Fire Chief has been plugging on about the dangers of messing with Lithium ion batteries in the news media lately - today for example i heard about it on the CBC Radio news. people have *died* because Li-ion batteries go up so quickly and fiercely
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Driven an unlocked Scooter at 60 km/h, scary af. Every little bump took quite a lot of grip strength to correct.
But even with the common 25 km/h, bicycles are just so much less mental load to drive.@lasagne 60km/h sounds terrifying on one of those things! i've ridden one at barely 25km/h and that's scary enough for me
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upshot: don't get your child an e-scooter, get them a bicycle instead.
an added bonus if you get a bicycle without a battery: you won't find the room where it's stored engulfed in flames in 90 seconds if it catches fire.
@adub Great explanation of the physics of e-scooters!
On the ebike battery issue, I had been told at a bike store that bikes made in Europe are safer than the cheaper Chinese ones due to more stringent battery regulations to reduce fire risk. I've often wondered if that's true, and if a big thing we're missing is better regulations to prevent fires. They're such a good car replacement that it would be great if more folk could use them with risk of house fire.
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@Cassandra the Toronto Fire Chief has been plugging on about the dangers of messing with Lithium ion batteries in the news media lately - today for example i heard about it on the CBC Radio news. people have *died* because Li-ion batteries go up so quickly and fiercely
@adub I've also heard scary things, but I don't know how inherently dangerous they are. Makes me wonder if it's another argument in favour of more widespread e-bike rentals over private purchases. Let a trained e-bike person store the batteries if they're otherwise gonna blow up the bike storage room.
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@adub I've also heard scary things, but I don't know how inherently dangerous they are. Makes me wonder if it's another argument in favour of more widespread e-bike rentals over private purchases. Let a trained e-bike person store the batteries if they're otherwise gonna blow up the bike storage room.
@Cassandra i've asked our Condo Board to seek advice on this, at the AGM. there's also a (larger) fire risk for electric cars, of course, but their components like batteries are considerably more tightly regulated.
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@adub Great explanation of the physics of e-scooters!
On the ebike battery issue, I had been told at a bike store that bikes made in Europe are safer than the cheaper Chinese ones due to more stringent battery regulations to reduce fire risk. I've often wondered if that's true, and if a big thing we're missing is better regulations to prevent fires. They're such a good car replacement that it would be great if more folk could use them with risk of house fire.
@PapyrusBrigade agreed, tighter e-bike battery safety regulations are sorely needed - so says the Toronto Fire Chief
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@Cassandra i've asked our Condo Board to seek advice on this, at the AGM. there's also a (larger) fire risk for electric cars, of course, but their components like batteries are considerably more tightly regulated.
@adub Ah. I have seen video of cars with melted batteries.
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bicycles have always struck physicists (e.g. me!) as almost miraculous. they are simultaneously:
• dynamically elegant,
• mechanically simple,
• energetically near-optimal, and
• extraordinarily cheap, as a conveyance.YES I DO LOVE BICYCLES. so should everyone, tbh.
with the added proviso that not everyone can ride a bicycle and that's OK. humanity will always need other transportation options. we just aren't anywhere close to bikemaxxing yet and we should be.
@adub Regarding "not everyone can ride", I think it goes both ways. Not everyone can easily walk, and for some folk, bicycles (and/or trikes) are an important mobility aid. I definitely noticed this in 3rd trimester pregnancy: walking was uncomfortable, running was impossible, but biking was a joy. And prior to her hip replacement surgery, my mom could barely walk, but she could still bike.
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why do you think e-scooters are still illegal on roads in most areas of this province? it isn't because regulators are stick-in-the-muds. it's because there's a big injury burden associated to these things.
for starters, you're riding something with no protection from the road or other road users apart from what you're wearing.
and most importantly, e-scooters are nowhere near as inherently stable as bicycles are.
@adub Excellent thread, although one point on this
you're riding something with no protection from the road or other road users apart from what you're wearing.
That could apply just as equally to bicycles or even motorcycles. I don't know about the laws across Canada, but here in the UK when wearing helmets on motorcyles was made compulsory in the 1970s there was a huge drop in the number of killed & seriously injured bike riders.
So the injury side of things on e-scooters is something that can be addressed, at least in theory, with legislation. The wider points around stability, however, well ye cannae change the laws of physics as a wise man once said.
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@Cassandra @catzilla iirc they're banned in winter months when the temperature gradient between inside and outside the TTC vehicle is harder on battery stability. less risky in summer.
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@catzilla @PapyrusBrigade great points, both!
i've even had a periods of my life where my little kickscooter (with 20cm diameter wheels) was a mobility aid. toe problem on one foot, that got put on the deck, i whizzed around pretty nimbly. but it wasn't an *approved* mobility aid so no use allowed inside medical clinics
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@adub Excellent thread, although one point on this
you're riding something with no protection from the road or other road users apart from what you're wearing.
That could apply just as equally to bicycles or even motorcycles. I don't know about the laws across Canada, but here in the UK when wearing helmets on motorcyles was made compulsory in the 1970s there was a huge drop in the number of killed & seriously injured bike riders.
So the injury side of things on e-scooters is something that can be addressed, at least in theory, with legislation. The wider points around stability, however, well ye cannae change the laws of physics as a wise man once said.
@losttourist yup. if people would wear full face helmets on e-scooters that would eliminate a hefty fraction of the injury burden. bike helmets are designed differently, afaik more for the typical ways in which cyclists fall off. when i rode an e-scooter briefly i even wore wrist elbow and knee guards too.
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@catzilla @PapyrusBrigade @adub This charity, for whom I once raised money with (ofc) an adventurous bike ride, thinks the same way. https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/
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bicycles have always struck physicists (e.g. me!) as almost miraculous. they are simultaneously:
• dynamically elegant,
• mechanically simple,
• energetically near-optimal, and
• extraordinarily cheap, as a conveyance.YES I DO LOVE BICYCLES. so should everyone, tbh.
with the added proviso that not everyone can ride a bicycle and that's OK. humanity will always need other transportation options. we just aren't anywhere close to bikemaxxing yet and we should be.
@adub bikes are also amazing vehicles for a lot of us with dynamic disabilities! Active transportation you can sit on, I frequently have to pedal with only one working leg when my health issues persist. Walking is very painful for me, but riding a bike helps a lot with my pain. I can also put a folding cane in my frame bag!
I love them!
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@catzilla @PapyrusBrigade @adub This charity, for whom I once raised money with (ofc) an adventurous bike ride, thinks the same way. https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/
@publicwondering Wow! That website looks so great. I love that they seem to have info sessions in many places, and the pictures show a range of adaptive bikes.
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Once you understand how many elegant self-correcting mechanisms are built into a bicycle, it's hard not to appreciate that it's one of the most successful dynamically stable machines ever invented.
It's also the most thermodynamically efficient way to convey a human ever invented, among conveyances available to the general public, per person per kilometre.
@adub @Daveography the stability of a bicycle is an impressively rich study in dynamics. You can even take away trail and have a stable "bicycle", as in Koojiman et al. (2011) which is also an excellent review of the mechanics in detail (rather than the hand-wavy claims that tend to dominate the subject)
http://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/research/topics/bicycle_mechanics/stablebicycle/
The less-pithy version is: there are zones of stability and instability based on a lot of factors like most complex dynamical systems, and the bicycles we're familiar with just happen to have great big zones of stability, a combination of evolving design and plain old good luck.
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bicycles have always struck physicists (e.g. me!) as almost miraculous. they are simultaneously:
• dynamically elegant,
• mechanically simple,
• energetically near-optimal, and
• extraordinarily cheap, as a conveyance.YES I DO LOVE BICYCLES. so should everyone, tbh.
with the added proviso that not everyone can ride a bicycle and that's OK. humanity will always need other transportation options. we just aren't anywhere close to bikemaxxing yet and we should be.
@adub I'm frustrated by how much money we put into bikes. We could put that into decent transportation like a train or more buses! Things that don't involve showing up at work exhausted and sweaty and with horrible helmet hair, that don't become dangerous due to ice most of the year
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bicycles have always struck physicists (e.g. me!) as almost miraculous. they are simultaneously:
• dynamically elegant,
• mechanically simple,
• energetically near-optimal, and
• extraordinarily cheap, as a conveyance.YES I DO LOVE BICYCLES. so should everyone, tbh.
with the added proviso that not everyone can ride a bicycle and that's OK. humanity will always need other transportation options. we just aren't anywhere close to bikemaxxing yet and we should be.
@adub I was just listening to Terry Pratchett's "invention of railways" novel, in which there's a side note about some goblin inventing the bicycle. I wish we'd gotten another Discworld novel about that!
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*Why bicycles are surprisingly stable*
A common myth is that bicycle stability comes mainly from the spinning wheels acting as gyroscopes. Gyroscopic effects help, but they are actually not the dominant factor.
The major sources of bicycle stability are:
1. Steering geometry (trail)
• The front wheel naturally "falls into" a turn when the bike leans.
• This automatically steers the contact patch underneath the rider's centre of mass.
• The bike performs a kind of continuous self-correction.2. Large wheel diameter
• Large wheels roll smoothly over imperfections.
• Small steering disturbances produce gentler changes in direction.3. Long wheelbase
• Reduces sensitivity to perturbations.
• Creates slower, more manageable dynamics.4. Rider position
• The rider's mass is located relatively high and centred between the wheels.
• Subtle body movements can effectively influence balance.At speeds around 10-20 km/h, many bicycles are remarkably self-stabilizing. If you've ever seen a bicycle coast for a surprising distance riderless, that's evidence of these effects.
@adub 60 years ago my schoolmates and I discovered most of this by comparing the performance and roadholding of, for example, a 150cc motorbike and an equally powerful(?) Vespa or Lambretta scooter. Scooters looked cool but didn't handle bumpy corners well.
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@adub I'm frustrated by how much money we put into bikes. We could put that into decent transportation like a train or more buses! Things that don't involve showing up at work exhausted and sweaty and with horrible helmet hair, that don't become dangerous due to ice most of the year
@Canageek it's not a case of either or. we can have both and.
