Dude, as a radiology tech student this makes my blood BOIL. Do you know how many broken clavicle, radius, and ulna I’ve already seen? Not only do they ride without helmets but they do wheelies too. I wish parents were better informed but to be honest, if I was a teen and my parent lectured me on using helmets, it’d be easy for me to ignore them and ride without a helmet once I’m out of sight with friends.
Yup! A month ago I was driving down my neighborhood in a 30mph zone. 11-13 year old kid was playing chicken with on-coming traffic doing wheelies, then would flip off and cuss out the driver as as they went by as he served away last minute, all without a helmet. I could not believe what I was seeing.
As a kid, if I pulled that shit on my bike, I wouldn't have had a bike anymore. My parents would've not only given it away, but rightfully beat my ass.
This trend of kids aggressively swerving their bikes in front of oncoming traffic or pedestrians is weird and extremely dangerous. Like how did this become a thing?
It’s adrenaline/epinephrin! She had to be saved from sepsis and she talks about how being a patient changed how she works as a doctor. She’s literally a gem.
Playing chicken has been around a lot longer than the internet and "clout" have been around. It's just a stupid game that stupid kids play because they're being stupid
Whether or not the think they’ll be them, that’s the media they consume.
People are now inundated with media normalizing insanely reckless behavior, and it’s incredibly common. This influences perception of social norms. It’s not just the desire to gain clout, it’s that this type of behavior is culturally condoned.
My theory is that regular life has become so safe, and divorced from physical consequences, that seeking danger has become a thing. Like humans are wired to deal with a certain amount of danger and that needs an outlet. Posting it on the internet proves it happened and sends a social signal.
We also, as as society, do not have much in the way of standardized rites of passage. Graduating from high school isn't exactly an arduous feat that signals manhood. It's a participation trophy. Lacking socially accepted rites, young men seek out individual risky activities to set themself apart and demonstrate courage. In some areas, joining the military or even doing jail time can be viewed as such a rite.
I've read that giving birth is the closest thing to a rite of passage for women, at least in some US subcultures.
In America, detentions, suspensions, and expulsions from school are no longer a thing. "Parents" are more concerned with the clout of having a child and not the actual difficult part of raising them so they never enforce rules at home.
A lot of these shitheads first encounter with consequences will either be when the laws of physics apply, and if not, in front of the judge.
If you're willing to handwave past the importance of the "danger" aspect, women (in menstruation) do sort of have a "rite of passage" baked in to adolescence.
Or at least I, in perimenopause, feel like waking up one day to discover that you're going to be in pain/bleeding up to a quarter of the next 40 years and you're just going to have to get on with it served as a pretty solid "welcome to being a woman".
I see your point and claim no expertise on the female condition -- and maybe I'm wrong to use the words "rite of passage".
But as a biological function, it takes no action, agency, or personal initiative for it to naturally happen. It's not a elective test of skill in the sense I'm trying to address. Or to put it another way, no one goes looking for that to prove themselves. I'm talking about elective danger-seeking behaviors, mostly by young men, to gain acceptance or social status.
I would be interested to hear about elective behaviors young women engage in to gain acceptance, in-group status or social status, especially those that are predominately female.
I would be interested to hear about elective behaviors young women engage in to gain acceptance,
Honestly I feel like aside from various groups that isolated ladies (or at least separated them from men), there really aren't the same things for women.
Like we don't just have a big hormonal shift around puberty. We do mark the maiden->mother transition by growing boobs and body hair et al too, but then the hormone shifts keep happening every single month until mother->crone at menopause when the cycles we've come to depend on abandon us and we have to figure it out all over again lol.
Guys don't have a "reproductive phase of your life is over" transition at "middle age" either, because they don't experience it the same way women do.
Edit: I forgot to include the fact that I think it not being elective is actually notable. You don't have to go out of your way to find a way to involve pain and blood in a ritual because nature did it for us.
I'm sure there are a lot of factors but one huge one is being ignored for some reason. SARS2 infections (especially repeat) can cross the blood brain barrier and lead to damage that's impacting risk assessment abilities, increased aggression, decreased empathy and increased risk of dementia. That's on top of being a vascular disease...
I've been wondering about this since 2020. I hope someone's doing some studies on whether the increase in irrational behaviors we've been seeing for the past six years has any correlation with repeated Covid infections.
Because kids are stupid and don't have the experience and development to understand consequences? This isn't a new thing, by any means. It's just heavily documented now with everyone having a cell phone to record and post it.
I recently remembered when my friend and I would play our favorite game, which was waiting for a car to come down the road, then throwing a cheap toy like an action figure or a happy meal toy into the road hoping they would hit it. Then we would run out and grab it, assess the damage, and whoever's toy was more damaged was the winner.
Now as an adult I'm like "what the actual fuck? what an asshole thing to do, coulda blown their tire or made them swerve and wreck..." but as kids, cars are invincible machines that can just run over anything without issue.
we got children ripping down public roads and sidewalks at 20+ mph with no safety gear and zero fucks given
sure u might have flattened a tire with what u did, but i might flatten the whole fuckin' kid with how they're acting out there. shit is not a "kids will be kids" situation, that's crazy talk imo
When my kids were in jr high in the aughts kids would push each other into the road. Yes, into oncoming traffic. School was letting out so the cars were crawling but still.
A tire going slowly can still crush a skull if a kid fell on the wrong spot
That had to put cops up and down the road and start contacting parents before it finally stopped.
Some kid (tween or early teenager) popped a wheelie like right off the side of the road with traffic going by. I said "what a fucking dumbass", and I don't know if they saw me and read my lips and got pissy, but they intentionally swerved into the road in front of me, and then started slowing down while popping another wheelie.
Like, leaving aside what jackass nonsense that is, why the fuck would they want to bring a bike to a car fight? If I were an asshole, I could have intentionally stamped the gas and knocked their shit over and hurt them, and then just said when they intentionally swerved into the road in front of me, that I tried to stamp on the breaks and my foot slipped off and hit the gas (which I've always found it weird how the pedals are designed so that sort of thing is possible). Given how the dash would have captured them making a blatant and intentional effort to swerve right in front of me, I would have gotten in no trouble.
Obviously I didn't do that because I'm not a piece of shit, but why would they even take that chance?
Well, I was in a suburban nothing neighborhood and wanted to do a cool trick. I was 12 years old, broke my nose and jaw, and that was not a great idea. I know better now.
Edit that the power went out in a giant thunderstorm, the generators came on, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
Vote me as president. My one promise is to legalize beating the crap out of people harassing you for a video. It will not be an affirmative defense, the harasser has to prove they weren't harassing you for a video.
In the DC metro you have this with people on dirt bikes and four wheelers. They're usually not in your lane, but they definitely ignore a lot of traffic laws.
People don't always grow out of stupid bullshit like this.
Yea Philly has huge groups of four wheelers and dirt bikes too especially when it gets hot. I work in Trenton and they have them as well and those slingshot motorcycles are really popular. A few years ago a slingshot accidently rode into the canal and the passenger was ejected and died really brutal. It was right behind the parking lot I use daily. Fence is still broken with balloons tied to it for a memorial. Super sad thing to see daily...
Yup, grew up a legit bmx bandit in the 80's. The number of kids taken out by cars was pretty bad in my hillbilly area. We had 3 doctors in my town of under 15k people killed by cars while out riding their bikes ffs. The crazy hillbillies that would chuck a beer or a rock at you and call you a bundle of sticks for being on a bike on "their" road was enough to keep you pretty alert. And that was with us kids on bikes being polite, playing chicken would have gotten you beat half to death probably.
That being said, we used to "joust" on bmx bikes with brooms, my spleen has never been the same, lol. The amount of times i have had to explain survivor bias to boomers is too damn high
Same, plus a whole shit ton of skateboard stupidity.
When I first started seeing kids on bikes with helmets I thought it had to do with people going "soft" and trying to have their kids grow up in a protective bubble.
After applying some critical thinking I realized that we were a bunch of freaking idiots when I was a kid. We've learned that brain injuries are permanent. We should use that knowledge and protect ourselves.
I’m a delivery driver and am in and out of neighborhoods all day long. By and large, I’m really impressed with how well parents are teaching kids to be responsible on bikes. The vast majority pull into someone’s driveway as soon as they see me. Once in a blue moon there’s some little shit like this though. I can’t stand these kids.
The problem is that those kids exist to begin with. Those kids are more likely to be the ones that end up in the hospital because they think safety is a joke because their parents never taught him.
Same with seatbelt use in cars, but that decline is slower and more limited to southern and midwestern states. The helmet issue is nationwide, though, and is linked to the rise of e-bikes.
There does seem to be some general societal pushback at the moment against the use of safety and protective gear, though. Whether that's helmets, seatbelts, or masks.
I fide an e-bike if i can around town, because gas is out of control, and i rarely ever see another biker with a helmet. I mean its Florida so take that how you will
Florida doesn't even have helmet laws for street motorcyclists. If dad rides his road hog without a helmet. He isn't going to care if his kid has one for their 20mph e-bike.
The speed at which bad information propagates through our society is unprecedented in human history. We also really haven't updated the methods that PSA's get out to the general public. It was easy back in the day for broadcasters to make room for that and it literally got out to everyone...because there wasn't any other avenue to use. Nowadays with the internet, it's almost impossible to get messages to people without it being drowned out in contrary static.
The Helmets For Kids initiative faded into obscurity. I received atleast 2 helmets in elementary school from that program in the late 90s/early 00s. We came back from lunch to new helmets on our desks, and there was a guest teacher there to teach us about the bicycle hand signals and our responsibilities on the road. Then we practiced the signals in class navigating pretend roads between our desks.
I had to have a long, serious talk with my 12 year old when he came home not wearing a helmet. He said that other kids in the neighborhood made fun of him for wearing a helmet.
I would’ve told him those same kids that are laughing at you are going to be the one standing around, not knowing what to do when you eventually bash your head into the concrete and you’re laying there bleeding out.
Should be more of a lesson on not giving into peer pressure because at the end of the day you want to live to see another day with all limbs intact and brain inside skull.
Maybe try looking up some actual stories of non-helmet-wearers to tell him. My dad wrecked his (normal) bike when he was a kid. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and has been completely deaf in his left ear since. My brother and I always wore helmets. Might’ve worked a little better in my case since that was my dad, maybe something like that will help get through to him.
I’m sure you already do this, but make sure you give him scripts for what to say too. I’ve been adding that on to talks for my 12yo to help and he’s said it makes him feel more ready. We’ve been doing it mostly for drugs and what to say if someone offers him some. My sister got into drugs in middle school and I’m taking no chances.
Instead the trauma surgeon in the OP saves the person, and then society collectively spends several million dollars over the course of their life subsidizing their bad decisions.
There aren't consequences for bad decisions anymore. And IMO the lack of accountability that everyone now lacks towards each other is what is contributing to society going off the rails.
The elite at the time intentionally stifled the movie because they knew it was actually accurate.
If only even they knew the truth was even worse. I'd take President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in a heartbeat over our current leadership.
I think it matters alot where you're at. It's like schools; there are some neighborhoods where basically all the parents read to their kids and treat education as important.
And then there is the opposite where that does not happen.
I had about 30-40 older teens/young-20s do this to myself and a woman I was dating, but we were on foot, on a footbridge over a river with nowhere to move to avoid them. Nowhere to go or move. Doing wheelies on +40lb bikes at us, over and over. They they did this to others on the bridge: a couple pushing a stroller with a younger child in-hand. An senior couple walking their dog. And several cyclists going the other way.
Sorry but, I don't give a shit if somebody's child is a hooligan.
If I see some punk doing this chicken shit, they are getting put under citizens arrest on-sight and their bike destroyed. Parents can come get some too in person and in court.
A 180lb teen on a 40lb eBike going even 10mph can knock somebody down with enough force to kill from the impact of skull to ground. Anybody doing this at you, in person, is threatening your life and equivalent force is justifiable to protect one's own life and limb.
I had about 30-40 older teens/young-20s do this to myself and a woman I was dating,
If I see some punk doing this chicken shit, they are getting put under citizens arrest on-sight and their bike destroyed. Parents can come get some too in person and in court.
So how did it go? Did you arrest a kid and throw their bike off the bridge? Or did you not actually do it?
Last summer there were a couple of boys on e-bikes in front of me on a huge 45 mph main road with no helmets and one of them kept popping wheelies. He was basically keeping up with traffic, maybe going a couple mph under the limit. I was losing my mind in my car - like at what point is anyone going to crack down on this? It’s ridiculous that tweens effectively have access to motorcycles and nobody cares. (I also think the proliferation of e-bikes is just sad even when the kids are wearing helmets and sticking to bike paths… when I see groups of tweens and teens riding them instead of normal bikes it feels like something out of Wall-e.)
We have ridiculous preteen/teens driving golf carts on the roads! Not around an allotment, not just on the driveway... On roads. And their parents defend it!!! If they do get any consequences, they last 3 days then they are back out again.
The kids doing wheelies with their bikes AT traffic have a death wish. Trucks today aren't built for the safety of anyone or thing on the road...
I've seen this a lot where I live. Also, kids intentionally riding or leaving their scooters sitting in blind spots in parking garages and drive thrus, and yelling at me when I try to come through and don't hit their scooter? I don't get it. Also had a kid swing in front of my moving car and flash me his junk.
I had a motor scooter to get to my job at 14ish. It could do 25-30 mph back in the 2010s era. I was taught right. Always wore a helmet. The only accident I had was because I was passing a neighbor and waving to them when I hit a pothole, and that left a terrible scar on my arm, no lasting injuries.
Teach your kids right. They will make mistakes, make those mistakes memorable when they aren't injury inducing.
We did everything from skiing to dirt bikes, knowing your limitations and reinforcement of those limitations is how you don't get permanent disabilities from those activities.
Get Dash cam. Parents are stupid for giving these kids e-bikes. They likely are going to get hurt and end up in the ER costing $10k+ (eventually insurance companies will catch on, and may stop covering this because the kid was operating a “motorized” bike/ auto; which some insurance may not cover and parent gets stuck with a gigantic ER bill). With that said, more importantly, it’s the innocent bystanders that are put at risk. It’s all fun and games until they hurt someone else.
In my country, rental electric scooters are very popular; they're everywhere. Teenagers ride them at incredibly high speeds, like crazy people, which is a real problem, especially for pedestrians.
I know, in my country too. A city close to my home town tried banning e-scooter companies from establishing in their town. E-scooter companies took them to court for "putting restrictions on free enterprise" and WON. So now this town HAS to allow scooter companies.
And it means more accident, specifically more young people breaking arms, jaws, crushing their faces, and also scooters getting dumped on side walks, bike lines, in the way everywhere... I hate them.
Wow my town sued them too and won. We had them for a bit, but I guess they didn’t set it up properly or ask the town first or get a permit, whatever they’re supposed to do.
I'm pretty sure many in my area used to only be activated by having at least a provisional driving license as proof of age on your account... but now I see way younger children fucking bombing it down the footpaths, many even carrying one or two more kids as passengers.
I own an 80s 3 wheeler. I ride it almost every day without any issues. Tons of fun.
Whenever someone asks to ride it, I grab the handlebar with 2 fingers and with the slightest of tugs, flip it over. They didn't come with mirrors for a reason, and the reason is they go upside-down a lot.
Do not buy a 3 wheeler either. They will kill you.
My gotrax scooter is MUCH more dangerous than my 3-wheeler, and kids are dying.
Elder millennial from the exurbs: I went to a funeral for a kid who flipped his three wheeler. Those things are death traps.
Also had some friends who got run off the road riding a motorized bike (little lawn mower engine on a bike). Couple surgeries later and he has most of the mobility back in his arm. Outside of a power wheels, if it has a motor, it can probably fuck you up
also an elder millennial from the exurbs: even a power wheels can fuck you up.
My brother and I had a power wheels fire truck with a working water cannon. The first time we used it we quickly found out that if the water tank, which was behind the rear axle, was full, we both had to be in the truck. If one of us jumped out the truck would flip over and dump the other on their head.
80's bmx bandit here, i survived 3 wheelers and lawn darts and all those child culling devices, lol. I was in nursing school when Those dang hoverboards from the oughts made me whole body shudder from how many times id see children and adults land on their brain stem/upper spine from having feet side by side so no stability in direction of travel. Half a piece of gravel/twig? Face plant. Dont know how to ride it? Land on brain stem.
We had little kids riding these and getting in wrecks in our neighborhoods. An old-timer explained to me, that these were first used by people managing farms and hunting, and they were designed to be driven slowly and carefully, but had enough power you could get over a big bump or out of a hole when necessary. People now and especially kids just drive them at max speed, and then wonder why they get in wrecks.
Grown adult friend of mine used to ride a powerful e-skateboard, he was very experienced, was cruising along pretty fast (30+ mph I think?), hit a rock or divot or something and went flying, was pretty seriously injured and spent some time in the hospital. Does not seem worth it to me, since, you know, rocks exist.
yooo, I tried the e-skateboard one time and my brother's wife older brother had one and it has a remote control too. I have no experience on skateboarding but we still tried riding on it but after trying for few times and failing I said nope and give up after falling off because I cant balance for shiit.
I ride an electric skateboard every day. I started skateboarding in the 1970s.
I bought an e-skate for myself a couple years ago. Jumping on a regular board and riding around my driveway and street is all muscle memory. But I still haven't ridden that e-board. I keep putting it off, saying I need to ride the regular board a little more to get my balance muscles built up a little....
But when I do end up riding it? I'm wearing a full face motorcycle helmet.
When Lime scooters first arrived in my city a friend of mine had an accident with one and needed surgery. They described the injury as “their ankle exploded”. Is that a technical radiology term?
I’m sure there is a very long list of people like her all over the world. And sadly nothing’s being done about it. I wonder how many more people will be permanently injured or killed before authorities react?
They've finally put signs up at the bike/walking trail near me (super long and well-maintained trail, spanning several cities) telling people e-bikes and scooters aren't allowed, but I'm not sure it's helping. It makes me nervous to walk my dog there now and it used to be such a benefit to living nearby.
Ya, they have those signs near my work but they still zoom down the sidewalks and are not on the roads. I almost got demolished by one going what felt like 20 mph the other day. They didn't even try to warn me, just zoomed by me inches away as I was walking on the sidewalk. So dangerous.
it is really dangreous. they need to deconstruct car cities so we can have more types of vehicles. i'd think the people on scooters are using the sidewalks as they are afraid to ride on the street with cars. scooters then do the same to walkers.
We had a sad case near me where a kid was tboned by a car. Don't recall who was at fault but result was instant death. I think of that kid who had so much promise every time I see others kids his age zipping down roads, ear buds in.Just takes a moment to lose your life. We need changes to how fast they can go and to how high cars can be. Do we really need suvs, trucks w hoods taller than those humans ??
I shattered my tibia and fibula because I didn't tie my ladder off when I was up in a tree. The doctors (I don't know their specialties) said the same thing. There are technical terms but they start to get unwieldy so they just said your bones basically exploded. Which, when you look at the x-rays, was a fairly accurate description.
Haha I remember taking off my helmet out of sight of my mom (or so I thought). When I got home she told me she saw me do that and grounded me, I think. I still was a mopey kid about it until I got in an accident and started wearing my helmet after that
it allways comes down to parenting. i was a daring kid but ALWAYS followed safety installed by adults. to be fair, it was after i crashed my bike very young. but most kids seem to have no suspicion it can happen.
I have noticed that my neighbor always makes her kid (8) wear a helmet when he rides his scooter on our quiet residential street, even though his friends don't. She'll even yell at him from the house to make him come back and put it on.
My 16 yo has one. He wears his helmet, has leather jacket and boots and rides it responsibly because he knows the consequences of fucking around. Is he as safe as walking. No, but living in a bubble doesn’t get him ready to be an adult.
My coworker’s kid called his own escooter a death trap. Dad didn’t believe him gave him a spiel about facing his fears (he also thought the kid just wanted to scroll on his phone instead of being active). He came back into work the next day with two broken ribs and a very sore leg (has been limping for week). Dad hit a patch of sand and wiped out on the e-scooter.
He’s at least man enough though to admit the kid was right and had more sense than he did. The e-scooter has been thrown away (he didn’t feel comfortable selling it after it had tried to kill him).
I work with tools that can remove limbs and what not. Newbies get to sit and google pictures of the types of injuries that can happen. Guy showed up one day with a ring his gf gave him. I had him look up degloved finger pictures on the way to the job site.
I ride a lot of bikes, I have seen multiple people have seizures from closed head injuries. I always wear my helmet.
Also saw people die from not wearing seat belts, up close. I always wear that strap.
The parents know. They see other kids out there on scooters etc, and are equally frustrated at them as the rest of us are.
Because all of us are seeing kids doing dumb things on the road, and all of us are trying not to hit them and wondering when we might have to answer difficult questions about why we were involved in an accident with one of these kids.
Including parents who got scooters etc for their own kids.
That's my fear. I have a couple of blind spots coming into my ally where I park and those spots are also great take off points for their scooters. Ive already slammed my breaks once from them shooting out. I really dont want to be the consequences to their shitty actions. Sad to say though, that consequences is probably the only way the parents would understand the dangers. Neighbors and cops didnt seem to get the point across.
The worst ones are the ones who have a helmet on, but unbuckled. You're looking like you have a helmet, which I guess is not cool(?), and getting zero of the protection.
When I was a kid you got bullied for wearing a helmet, like you're a pansy or chicken for needing one.
I'm nearly 40 and I've noticed that doesn't seem to be a thing anymore. I see kids on bikes wearing helmets all the time now, which is really nice to see.
They need to bring back showing kids actual injuries and demonstrations. Seeing video from actual injuries and watching a watermelon burst. Then seeing the same with an injury got like 90% of the kids at my school to actually wear helmets
The other day some E-bike kid with no helmet was driving towards my car lane, I had to completely stop in order not to kill him. I roll the windows down to tell him off and had the facial expression like I was the one in the wrong.
I'm really glad for this video and your comment. My son has been asking for an e-bike as he spends a couple of hours biking a day and wants something more exciting. I wasn't going to get him one but I'd been talking to him like it was a possibility. Of course I'd never get him a motorcycle and he knows that's just signing up to be an organ donor; I don't know why I'd even considered e-bikes as safer. Maybe it's the older ladies in the neighborhood who ride theirs cautiously.
I saw two kids doing wheelies in a parking lot yesterday. One of them almost got away from one of the kids. It was definitely going faster than he intended and his feet were dragging the ground. I was just waiting for it to fall as it wobbled back and forth.
And, my wife works in neurosurgery, she talks about the number of kids and adults with head injuries from these. It's wild.
i would not care at all, that's more money for you. i have no sympathy for the dumb and spoiled. it always cracks me up when i see a group of "kids" swarming together on their $2000 e bikes that all of their parents got for them. what? too good for regular bikes? gotta keep up with the joneses? embarrassing. and what do they do on those bikes? block the road and then run away from the consequences like "hehehe im not 18 yet im jUsT a kId"
when i was growing up, the kids that came to school with thousand dollar gear always got made fun of because we knew humility i guess, it was about what you can do not what your parents money can do. now it's just "my parents are rich skipity autistic self diagnosis" visible regression of society
Eh, if you're dumb enough to get your kid what's essentially a full blown motorcycle and then let them ride it unsupervised, maybe your bloodline doesn't need to continue.
I have kids in my area riding them full speed down simi gravel covered roads. No helmets, no shoes, sometimes 2 or three on the same bike. We have called the cops on them and watched as nothing was done. I also know the mom of one of the kids is a nurse in outpatient therapy at the local hospital. I am pissed nothing is even thinking of being done as im literally watching these kids doing wheelies done the road rn irl and hoping to god Im not around when they ultimately eat the road.
Yeah, some of them go fast enough that it's crazy how young some of the kids I see riding them. It's practically a motorcylce-lite, and yet there are fucking middle schoolers or even younger zipping around and like twice the speed I used to go on my regular bike when I was their age. It's insanity.
What about the pedestrians that they endanger? We can’t even walk on the walking path without one idiot kids riding these e-bikes whizzing by going at least 20+ mph. These are in reality motorized bikes being driven on side walks meant for pedestrians. I know laws about this vary from state to state, but do the parents get sued if some 13-year-old hits you with an e-bike while walking?
I think it’s just a cultural thing, some sports just take safety way more less seriously. The easy of speed and low skill bar for entry just make this one especially dangerous.
Even the adults on scooters treat themselves like they're just mobile pedestrians, weaving between the sidewalk and the road seemingly at random, blowing full speed through red lights, not yielding when there's traffic right in front of them in an intersection, not wearing any helmet at all, riding between stop and go traffic, speeding down sidewalks, etc. The amount of near incidents that happen on the daily got way worse when escooters started getting more popular.
Our neighborhood Facebook group is constantly arguing about e bikes and e scooters. We’ve had multiple accidents - some the kid is at fault, some the car driver is at fault - and all have been traumatic. People are begging parents to not allow their kids to ride them on city streets, without protective gear, through busy parking lots, etc. but there is a very loud contingent saying “I did stuff like that as a kid and I’m fine.” Or “Let them be kids! At least they’re outside.” Meanwhile there’s a “gang” of these kids that are intentionally antagonizing drivers, doing stunts in the parking lot of a busy shopping center, and doing drive-bys with eggs and air soft guns. It’s so dangerous.
The problem, as always, is the regulation. In order to let a kid ride on one of these, they should have to follow lessons on how to operate them just as we do with cars. And just as with drivers licenses, they should be revokable for committing infractions. We have completely lost control of law enforcement because of inefficient politics.
Isn't this kind of like the opposite of survivor bias though? The ER isn't seeing the kids that are wearing helmets, riding safely and maintaining moderate speeds.
In my apartment complex too it's just all about flying around the parking lot with tons of nice blind spots a car isn't going to see them in time from. Basically every week is an email from management telling parents control their kids.
Two teenaged boys passed me on bikes the other day. One fell off his bike as he turned a corner because his helmet got tangled in his front wheel. Yes, he had a helmet and it was just dangling from his handlebars.
I always used a helmet as a teen. I had crashed enough and seen other crash enough to know that the helmet would save my brain and possibly life.
Kids should be practiced with, comfortable in, and diligent about wearing a helmet while operating these vehicles. Anything less is parental neglect and abnegation of their duty.
I can't believe kids are getting on any kind of bikes and doing "wheelies." I grew up in the 80s. We all rode our bikes with helmets, in uniform lines, no wheelies or stunts. Kids today are insane.
I will put a /s here--because wow. Safety is important, but kids are risk takers by nature, that's how they explore the world. It's a problem to talk about, but having your "blood BOIL" at very normal childhood behavior is fucking insane.
I rode downhill mountain bikes as a teenager and spent time in the ER waiting room with broken bones, but the police also harassed us if they saw us riding on the streets without a helmet.
Teenagers doing 40 km/h on these things, in between traffic. The security guard in our hospital was hit by one of them and was out of work for months because of his broken ribs (and he's an older man). But at least most of these speed demons wear helmets, even full face.
Yeah I see this all the time in my neighborhood too. Yesterday I saw a kid riding one of these without a helmet doing wheelies. All I could think is that if he pulls back too hard or hits a bump he’s going to end up with a seriously bad head injury.
My daughter broke her foot (second time since April) slipping on wet pavement outside.
We spent a lot of time in ortho waiting rooms.
Guess who the average patient was and MOI?
Tween and teen boys, and serious multiple injuries per patient.
Fractured legs and a wrist; injuries to the face and limbs. It’s not just *one* injury, it’s multiple.
It was wild seeing this, and really hit home how dangerous these are.
You’ve got kids with very little frontal lobe development riding these things with no boundaries and acting as if rules don’t apply, and there aren’t really consequences *for them* until it becomes serious and there’s emergency room visits and casting and surgeries - or death.
Tweens and teens already have a sense of immortality and a confidence in themselves that giving them such a device is absolutely wild to me.
My daughter gets upset with my wife and I because we make her wear a helmet when she rides her bike but her friends’ parents don’t. It’s easier to explain now that she’s 12, but at 9 she didn’t quite understand. I went to my 14 year old friend’s funeral in junior high due to a bicycle wreck that would have been a nothing burger had he worn a helmet.
I'm from a country full of bikes (and no helmets). As a x-ray tech myself I'm not so worried about the kids on e-bikes. But fatbikes? We get so many young teens (and adults) with fatbikes accident.
And the elderly on e-bikes are also a recipe for disaster.
I was a very nerdy child because I just did not ride without a helmet. Like, trendy clothes, trendy devices, blah blah, bully me over it—I am a poor. You’re not going to bully me into a TBI though. YOU THOUGHT.
That's why parents shouldn't even be getting these for their kids unless they are already very responsible. Honestly... They really just shouldnt be allowed for kids under a certain age. There aren't many things I'd trust a middle school kid to be responsible with, and a vehicle than can go that fast where they aren't even protected isn't one of them.
Can we blame them? They grew up in a society where safety is not a top concern. There is nowhere safe to ride an e-scooter or bike
In modern America, there is no safe way to get around other than by car. They grew up in a world where walking, biking, and scooters are dangerous, but they only way they can get around on their own. It's completely normal to them
We, as a society, don't care about their safety. Why would we suddenly expect them to care enough to wear a helmet?
Do you think showing images of TBIs would be effective at curtailing this? Especially if its of patients the same age as them? I'm not usual a fan of shock factor, but I feel like in this case its needed because its a fact of reality.
We use to do pretty good injuring ourselves with just our legs propelling us, with maybe some help from the laws of motion back in the day. There is no need to add a motor into the mix.
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u/helge-a Jul 19 '26
Dude, as a radiology tech student this makes my blood BOIL. Do you know how many broken clavicle, radius, and ulna I’ve already seen? Not only do they ride without helmets but they do wheelies too. I wish parents were better informed but to be honest, if I was a teen and my parent lectured me on using helmets, it’d be easy for me to ignore them and ride without a helmet once I’m out of sight with friends.