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Comment by mips_avatar | Hacker News Reader

I recently bought a Boosted rev and have been using it for my 1.8 miles commute. I strongly disagree with the author's 15mph limit. I think 25 mph is a more reasonable limit, otherwise you have cars aggressively trying to pass you on roads. At 24 mph (my scooters max speed), the cars on my commute (25mph speed limit), still try to pass me sometimes but it's a lot safer.

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At 25MPH, a tiny crack or lip in the concrete would equal a very expensive faceplant. And it's not really even a matter of skill or reflexes - the tiny wheels of the current electric scooters are just not capable of handling imperfections at speed.

That's why you need bigger better wheels. I agree that going above 15 on a Xiaomi scooter is terrifying, but on the Boosted Rev, it's smooth as butter.

> That's why you need bigger better wheels

Or just one big one! https://onewheel.com

I switched to one of these after having a few too many wipeouts on a longboard. It's been fantastic.

It's wild that someone managed to manufacture a last mile transport device that makes the rider look even more of a goober than the scooters.

Oh man, wait until you see an EUC.

Onewheels are better than scooters in every way ... except price.

How so? Aren't they more difficult to ride and maybe more dangerous?

Not only bigger, but inflatable rubber wheels. The small, hard rubber wheels that we used to rip when Razor Scooters were huge in the 90s were great if you didn't value your face.

I broke my arm on one of those as a kid.

Were you trying to karate chop it in half?

They go over tiny cracks and lips just fine. It's potholes and large cracks that are a big problem. You learn to watch for and avoid them, just like you would on a skateboard.

Or maybe cars should obey the speed limit, pass at a safe and reasonable distance, and not road rage at people? I mean, why does every new alternative travel mode need to work around the unacceptable and lawless US driver behavior?

That all said, 25mph on scooter wheels sounds terrifying. I've seen some escooters with tiny adorable disc brakes. What's your stopping distance at that speed?

> Or maybe cars should obey the speed limit, pass at a safe and reasonable distance, and not road rage at people? I mean, why does every new alternative travel mode need to work around the unacceptable and lawless US driver behavior?

Because this is reality, not a fantasy world.

Because we design for worst case scenarios, not perfect utopias.

That all said, 25mph on scooter wheels sounds terrifying.

Meh, you work up to it. Time and place, though; I tone it down through the downtown part of the trail.

What's your stopping distance at that speed?

Faster than my car or motorcycle. And that's just using the regenerative braking of the motors. I've never tried a full-on-drop-anchor stop with both the mechanical disk and regen brakes.

> > What's your stopping distance at that speed?

> Faster than my car or motorcycle. And that's just using the regenerative braking of the motors. I've never tried a full-on-drop-anchor stop with both the mechanical disk and regen brakes.

Do you have a heavily modified scooter or something otherwise unusual? I looked up braking tests for cars, motorbikes, and e-scooters, and couldn't find a single e-scooter that's been tested that has the same stopping distance as a normal car let alone a sports or a motorcycle.

I don't think this is super surprising considering the relative size of the contact patch and what the "tire" is made of on most scooters.

In another comment, you said you have a Xiaomi scooter. In this brake test (https://www.zdnet.com/article/mi-electric-scooter-review-com...), it has a 13 foot stopping distance from 12.4mph even when using the disc brakes. This is similar to what other scooter tests show.

NACTO's suggestion for a conservative car stopping distance is 11 feet from 15mph, not including reaction time, which is the same as in the scooter test (https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/vehicle_stopping_distance_and_ti...).

How are you getting your scooter to stop more quickly than a motorcycle?

Better brakes. The Xiaomi’s stopping power isn’t even close to the Boosted Rev, mainly due to weak regen braking on the Xiaomi.

But you caught me, it’s all been measured on the seat-of-the-pants dyno. </shrug>

Drivers will pass if you’re going slow, and some of them will do it dangerously so faster scooters are a safe move. I can stop as fast as the cars do.

Be careful. I'm speaking from experience when I say that there are only so many lucky falls you can have when you are traveling faster than you can run, especially with only friction keeping your feet on the board.

I can’t imagine doing 25mph on such small wheels, one small pothole and you will be off.

Electric skateboards all go that speed and faster, and their wheels are even smaller— usually around the 80-100mm diameter range.

Electric skateboards are no less dangerous.

25 mph makes sense on the road (same with pedal-assist electric bikes), but on sidewalks 15 mph is definitely fast enough given the small wheels and lack of a suspension. even what look like small cracks/potholes can throw you off the scooter if you’re not paying attention.

It's illegal most places to ride them on the sidewalk.

You shouldn't be riding them on sidewalks, especially not at 15mph.

25 mph if you wear a helmet, register your vehice, get mandatory insurance and a driver's license or a drivng legislation certificate. Otherwise no. E-bikes are assisted up to 25 mph, why would e-scooters be any different? At least in Europe, if you have an e-bike that is assisted up to 25 mph or over 250 Wh continous rated power, you have to register it as a moped, wear s helmet, get insurance, pay vehicle ownership taxes in order to operate it on public roads.

There are already too many irresponsible e-scooter riders on the roads who ride the wrong way on one way streets, cross mounted at pedestrian crossings, ride on sidewalks, ignore red lights, stop signs etc.

All those behaviours are bad, but the point of mandatory insurance is to cover liability— the ability of your choices and your equipment to incur damage and costs for others. In that regard, mandatory insurance for scooters doesn't pass the sniff test any more than mandatory insurance for people riding bicycles.

Yes, you can concoct scenarios where a scooter/bike triggers a crash by doing something unexpected/illegal such that another vehicle swerves. But these are rare circumstances, particularly in contrast with automobile collisions which nearly always involve damage to vehicles or property. Even at 25, 30, or even 40mph, how much damage is a scooter or e-bike capable of doing?

Bicycle licensing has been requested and studied so many times in Toronto that they actually have a page on their website about why it isn't done: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-tra...

I'm not talking about push scooters, muscle operated bicycles or pedal assisted e-bikes with a power rating below or equal to what an average person delivers. This is a discussion about motorized vehicles with more powerful engines that can operate at speeds in excess of 15 mph. At 25 mph you can definitely kill a pedestrian or knock another cyclist and injure them. Bicycle licensing is unnecessary.

1/2 * (100 kg vehicle + occupant) * (45 mph)^2 = 6328 J

~7×10^3 J = Muzzle energy of an elephant gun, e.g. firing a .458 Winchester Magnum[90]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(energy)#1...

my only experience with the rental scooters is the Lime ones, but i felt that a 15mph limit was if anything too high. If they had better brakes, they could go a lot faster, but with the quality of brakes that are installed anything greater than 15mph could lead to some really dangerous situations.

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