Last week, I had an accident whereas using an electric scooter. But issues would have been loads worse if I wasn’t sporting a helmet.
For my Apollo City evaluation — as with all different electric scooters I check — I rode it round my city, evaluating how nicely it carried out when accelerating, braking, and touring over bumps. I additionally took it up and down hills to see how nicely the Apollo City may deal with inclines, revved it as a lot as I may to check its claimed prime velocity, and rode it round to verify its battery life claims.
In the course of testing the Apollo City, I was cruising alongside at about 20 miles per hour, taking it down one avenue no extra distinctive than the subsequent, when I hit a pothole at an odd angle. It wasn’t any greater than others I’d ridden over previously however this time, I hit it weirdly and, at that second — from what I can keep in mind — I didn’t have as agency a grip on the left handlebar as typical.
In an on the spot, the scooter’s handlebar twisted out of my management. The scooter veered towards the precise and fell to the pavement; I continued my trajectory straight ahead till I, too, smashed into the asphalt.
The left aspect of my physique suffered the worst components of the impression. My left elbow was skinned fairly nicely, my left hip has a bruise the scale of a small pineapple, and my left ankle swelled up the scale of a golf ball. My fingers escaped any harm as a result of it occurred to be a cold day and I was sporting a pair of leather-based gloves.
But extra importantly, although my head whacked the bottom, I didn’t get a scratch wherever close to my face, as a result of I was sporting a helmet.
In 2019, practically 900 bicyclists died, and practically half-a-million folks have been injured on account of an accident, based on the CDC. Figures for electric scooter riders are smaller, however are rising quickly as extra and extra folks take to the streets. Emergency room visits from electric scooter accidents rose to 25,400 in 2020 from 7,700 in 2017, based on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and accounted for greater than half of all accidents from micromobility merchandise.
Those numbers are solely going to rise the extra folks use electric scooters and alternate types of transportation, similar to electric bikes.
The helmet I was sporting, a Bontrager Charge ($160, REI), obtained a bit dinged up, and now there are some mild scratches alongside the aspect the place it hit the bottom. The Charge is just like the Bontrager Specter on our record of the most effective bike helmets; each fashions use what the corporate calls WaveCel expertise, whose construction and design helps to scale back rotational movement when it — otherwise you — hit one thing. While it was within the center of the pack amongst 144 bicycle helmets examined, it obtained a 5-star score by the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab, which exams helmets of every kind for his or her capability to scale back linear acceleration and rotational velocity.
Aside from the opposite accidents to my physique, I was in any other case okay. I was a bit shook up, to make certain, and it’s going to be a short time earlier than I can begin operating once more, however issues may have been loads worse.
So let this be a warning: If you’re planning on using a motorcycle or an electric scooter, please put on a helmet.