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Comment by MezzoDelCammin | Hacker News Reader

[citation needed]. Not because I doubt the number (it seems plausible), but because I'd like to see the data.

IMO once You factor for speed and environment (how much time will any of those electric city scooters ever ride on highway and/or above maybe 50-60kph?), You'll be left with two causes of accidents - rider who loses control (exponentially less deadly with reduced speed) and scooter vs car crash on intersections / in lanes. In this case, much as those crumple zones work well for whoever is inside the metal box, they also add extra mass / energy to the body that's being deformed on the outside...

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I ride motorcycles. I am never more scared than when I am stopped at a traffic light, especially if there is a car in front of me. I have seen (and in my car been) rear ended. It's not fun. On a bike that is almost certain death. Even at 25-30mph. With the number of drivers on cell phones this is a real risk.

Personally I mitigate this by stopping at the edge of the lane and keeping an eye on my mirrors. If I am going to get hit I can at least escape between the lanes.

In civilized countries filtering between lanes of stopped cars is the norm. This gets the vulnerable two-wheeled vehicles out of the danger zone. In the US that is illegal almost everywhere. Even if it was legal drivers would have to be educated to not use their vehicles as weapons, something that is surprisingly common.

> In the US that is illegal almost everywhere

But, for anyone else reading, one of the few places filtering and lane splitting in general is legal (up to ~10mph speed difference) is in California.

There was extensive discussion on a recent episode of "Highside Lowside" (Revzilla's Podcast) about whether lane splitting at speed increases or decreases safety, complete with stats and personal experiences. (In their opinion it comes down to the skill of the rider.) Filtering when cars are fully stopped is likely safe and less contentious.

Highways are actually some of the safest roadways for motorcycle riders, with the vast majority of motorcycle accidents happening at intersections. Scooters are not immune to this, and would in fact spend more time in these danger zones than motorcycles. I do believe that area also plays a large role in fatality rate as well as culture. Eliminating any alcohol consumption goes a long way in avoiding motorcycle accidents, but there's a huge cruiser culture that involves going to the bar as a ride destination. And localized driving culture also plays a big role. In many developing countries where more people are on bikes, speed limits tend to be lower to match road quality. As such, most motorcycles and scooters will be functionally equivalent, with most bikes being sold being less than 250cc. But also, all the traffic, including car traffic might be slower. Additionally, the increased prevalence of stick shift means less texting and driving. Whereas in the US, especially in big driving cities, you may have very aggressive driving culture. Like Chicago, where I actually felt safer on a full motorcycle than a bicycle and most definitely safer than on a scooter. In those places, being slow puts you at the mercy of the aggressive drivers coming from behind you. Classes I took there actually encouraged you to be a more aggressive rider, to ride slightly faster than traffic to find bubbles in the traffic and be certain that you weren't going to be rear ended by someone doing something stupid. Sorry I don't have any data, just around 100k miles of seat time over the course of about 5 or 6 years, most of it urban riding. Motorcycle's are very dangerous, and there are steps you can take to mitigate the danger, like choosing when and where to ride, but at the end of the day, you are always at the mercy of cars on the road, and drivers seem to be getting progressively worse as more people are on their phones.

A major factor that I see surprisingly few people advocate for even in an educational setting is helmet color and high-visibility clothing. If I remember correctly just wearing a white helmet alone is associated with a 25% lower risk of being in a fatal accident. A white helmet + high vis gets you closer to 40% or 50% reduction.

There were rumblings in Australia about making high-viz clothing a requirement but I'm not sure if that actually got passed or not. From the data I've seen it makes nearly as much of a difference as wearing a helmet vs not.

It's surprising how much motorcycle armor is out there touting their super-advanced kevlar buffer pad race construction yet are colored darker than night.

> super-advanced kevlar buffer pad race construction

Why do you need that on your 25cc scooter? Caus it looks cool. What colour would you like that in? Light absorbing Batsuit black please.

I'm mostly basing my comments off of info pulled from this site https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-motorcyc...

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