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Study finds that e-scooters provide light level of physical activity,
50% higher energy expenditure than driving
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214140524001828
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|u/Gaff1515 - 20 hours
|
|in other words, standing uses more energy than sitting...


  |u/Naprisun - 19 hours
  |
  |It’s more than that. You also employ tons of different muscles when
  |steering and keeping balance. It’s way more active of an activity than
  |even riding a metro or bus standing up.


    |u/mickey5545 - 19 hours
    |
    |imaging how much you would use providing the power yourself!!


      |u/Octopus_ofthe_Desert - 18 hours
      |
      |Went for two 11-mile bike rides on Tuesday. I wasn't sure I was
      |capable, but by golly I was.    I have mild scoliosis, PTSD and
      |about as much cartilage in my knees as a concrete block does. 
      |There is no excuse for most people to use an internal combustion
      |engine to travel short distances. 


        |u/accountforrealppl - 17 hours
        |
        |When I tell people I used to bike ~5 miles across the city for
        |my commute, they look at me like that's some insane athletic
        |feat. Like... I'm pretty sure my grandma could do that in 30
        |minutes. Make it an ebike to help with the uphills and anyone
        |could do it without even breaking a sweat


          |u/Frandom314 - 14 hours
          |
          |Same, I bike around 13 km in total to commute to work, and if
          |I'm not rushing it barely feels like excersising, but some of
          |my coworkers consider it crazy. And I'm not really athletic


          |u/ensalys - 12 hours
          |
          |Yeah, here in the Netherlands the 5mi ride wouldn't stand out
          |at all. We probably cycle the most in our teenage years, then
          |as we come into adulthood we start using a car more, as we
          |continue our adulthood we cycle less. Until we retire, then
          |you see a spike in cycling, though mostly for fun, which then
          |decreases as age takes its toll. When you get of your bike for
          |the last time is highly variable, for plenty of people it will
          |be as long as their body allows (and some try to stretch it
          |further than is safe). Especially now with ebikes, you see
          |plenty of cycling elderly. You'll also see plenty of parents
          |driving their kids to school in a cargo bike, or just a more
          |traditional bike with 1 or 2 child seats added on them (bonus
          |points if you also have full cycling bags and one grocery bag
          |hanging from the steering wheel).


          |u/Brrdock - 16 hours
          |
          |Man, we're a bit spoiled aren't we.  We should've never
          |invented transportation that gets us anywhere by anything but
          |our own muscles.  Horses? Forbidden technology. Sailboats?
          |Absolutely not. North America is still a naturalistic paradise
          |for natives. Colonialism? Slave trade? East India Company?
          |World wars? Global capitalism? Climate change? Never heard of
          |'em, wake up


            |u/Thed4nm4n - 15 hours
            |
            |That would make cross world travel impossible. I'd love for
            |cities to provide a better walking experience and a strong
            |medium and long range public transportation network to
            |discourage car use. The chances of that are low within the
            |next 5 years though.


            |u/KommieKon - 13 hours
            |
            |Agriculture was a mistake!


        |u/mickey5545 - 18 hours
        |
        |people really dont know how much they are actually capable of
        |now a days. the human body is an amazing machine.


          |u/Octopus_ofthe_Desert - 16 hours
          |
          |You'll love this part.   I had to make the trip to get three
          |wisdom teeth pulled. I biked back with three empty sockets.
          |Humans are hardcore 


            |u/mickey5545 - 15 hours
            |
            |sht yeah, bro!! my last c section i had i was 36! that
            |night, i walked a mile around the mom/baby ward. we ARE
            |hardcore.


        |u/FeistyThings - 11 hours
        |
        |I wish I could. Building up my tolerance for walking slowly
        |because I  also hate depending on a car for everything. It sucks


        |u/DaDibbel - 14 hours
        |
        |How do you deal with the pain though?  Walking these days is
        |agony for me.


          |u/Octopus_ofthe_Desert - 13 hours
          |
          |I lost a great deal of weight, totally switched my diet, began
          |stretching daily.    The diet is mostly beans, veggies, seeds
          |and the like, with as much anti-inflammatory ingredients as I
          |can get.   Breakfast this morning was a refried bean burrito
          |in a tortilla made from lentils, a, "lenturrito" made with a,
          |"lentilla" as I've been joking to friends. Lunch was leftover,
          |chilled soup, sweet potatos, carrot and ginger with honey and
          |a touch of cream-of-chicken. I think dinner will be steamed
          |salmon n' veggies.    The modern world is great at creating
          |broken people, and America is expert. I'm finding success by
          |rejecting modernity and embracing monke, basically 


            |u/trailrunner68 - 3 hours
            |
            |You need to be acknowledged.  Improving the fuel is
            |mandatory for good results.  No one should expect exercise
            |alone to be optimum.  Exercise alone isn’t even sustainable.
            |Treat your body well.


      |u/MRSN4P - 13 hours
      |
      |Yabba dabba do!


      |u/cinemachick - 8 hours
      |
      |I have a very steep hill leading up to my home. Biking it is very
      |difficult without assistance, in my case. I tried to bike similar
      |hills in college and had to take multiple breaks on the side of
      |the road to cool off, I always ended up sweaty and red-faced at my
      |destination. An electric scooter was both faster and left me more
      |presentable for classes/work. Sometimes a bit of assistance is the
      |difference between a pleasant journey and an unbearable one.


      |u/ga-co - 4 hours
      |
      |Can we invent that? Like a lightweight thing with two wheels that
      |we use our muscles to propel?


    |u/2Throwscrewsatit - 18 hours
    |
    |50% more than sitting and using your shoulders and ankles is not a
    |“ton”


      |u/MayorMacCheeze - 16 hours
      |
      |Its a lot. Consider the efficiency of most transportation devices
      |that literally weigh over a "ton" to carry just a couple hundred
      |pounds of inert human. Lazy has become the norm.


        |u/sticklebat - 10 hours
        |
        |It is not a lot, it’s not even as much as walking slowly on
        |level ground, which also is not a lot.   Comparing it to the
        |energy efficiency of a car makes no sense, I’m not sure what
        |you’re on about there.


      |u/TimmyC - 17 hours
      |
      |Road rage is a lot of calories!


    |u/_CatLover_ - 16 hours
    |
    |Remove power steering from cars


  |u/liamnesss - 20 hours
  |
  |Yes, I believe very similar findings have been made regarding the use
  |of standing desks.


|u/defcon_penguin - 18 hours
|
|Yeah, but a lot less than walking or biking


  |u/No_Excitement4272 - 16 hours
  |
  |I have POTS and walking or biking more than a couple blocks is out of
  |the question for me.   I started riding an electric mini bike, (no
  |pedal assistance, only throttle), and my body composition has changed
  |so much. I got confused because for the first time in over a decade I
  |was building muscle and didn’t understand why my clothes were getting
  |looser yet I was still gaining weight. 


    |u/RebeccaBlue - 16 hours
    |
    |This is really cool.  I'm glad it's helping you so much.


  |u/PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__ - 4 hours
  |
  |Escooters occupy the niche of "I know cars suck but I don't want to
  |bike." They're an important part of getting rid of our car-centric
  |lifestyle


    |u/RichardSaunders - 1 hour
    |
    |As a frequent cyclist, I kinda hate scooters. People park them
    |jutting out into bike lanes, perpendicular to sidewalks, at the
    |bottom of staircases, and every other dangerous and obnoxious place
    |you can imagine. I'm all about eco-friendly last mile mobility, but
    |scooters are a scourge.


      |u/PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__ - 1 hour
      |
      |Are these scooters short term rentals or owned? I own mine and
      |lock it up at bike racks. Cities should impound any rental scooter
      |that's parked improperly


        |u/RichardSaunders - 16 minutes
        |
        |App Rentals. They're all over the place and Google Maps will
        |even suggest them as a mode of transit. Only ever heard of
        |people owning their own scooters on Reddit. Doesn't seem to be
        |the case in my city, or if so it's a tiny minority.


  |u/ugen64ta - 4 hours
  |
  |Biking sure, but walking Im actually not sure about. I regularly walk
  |20k+ steps in a day where I live and also play team sports, so i can
  |walk for hours without feeling the slightest bit tired. But maybe 10
  |min on an electric scooter and I feel like Im actually exerting
  |myself, probably 30 min+ I might actually feel tired.


|u/Scytle - 7 hours
|
|whatever gets people out of cars.   Remember streets are public goods,
|paid for by the public, with the goal of moving goods and people around.
|They are not private road ways designed to move cars around (but you
|would be forgiven if you didn't believe me)  Just imagine what a city
|would be like if most of the people were walking/biking/e-scooting/ or
|using public transportation to move around...it would be really really
|really nice.  We would have roads still for the very few people/goods
|that couldn't be accommodated by those other methods, but man what a
|city to live in that would be.


  |u/AbsoluteZeroUnit - 6 hours
  |
  |Streets are public goods, paid for by the public, for the express
  |intention of having vehicles travel on them.  All of the road
  |infrastructure is there so cars can use them.  It's fine if you prefer
  |a car-free future, but it's silly to argue "this thing that we built
  |specifically for cars isn't for cars"


    |u/andyrocks - 2 hours
    |
    |But they aren't built specifically for cars. They're built for cars,
    |trucks, vans, motorcycles - vehicles. Many roads and streets predate
    |motor vehicles entirely.


|u/Alohagrown - 16 hours
|
|I just got an e-scooter and I noticed I will be a little sweaty after
|ripping around the neighborhood at 20mph.


|u/KeldornWithCarsomyr - 19 hours
|
|150% of a negligible number is still a negligible number


  |u/obrapop - 19 hours
  |
  |Not necessarily. It depends on where the boundaries of negligible and
  |non-negligible lie. That’s a significant increase and could well cross
  |it.


    |u/smurferdigg - 18 hours
    |
    |I would define the boundary as improving physical performance and
    |health. Maybe for some individuals who don’t do anything but sit
    |down all day a scooter ride a day might be measured. But yeah, we
    |ain’t taking much I would assume.


  |u/Yotsubato - 19 hours
  |
  |You spend about 200 calories an hour driving a car.   It’s not
  |negligible.


    |u/buttertoastey - 19 hours
    |
    |Is that 200 extra calories or is it base metabolism + activity =
    |200?


    |u/Mean-Evening-7209 - 19 hours
    |
    |Is that on top of the basal metabolic rate?


    |u/KeldornWithCarsomyr - 19 hours
    |
    |Is that removing the base line calorie usage per hour.


      |u/Yotsubato - 18 hours
      |
      |It includes the baseline.   Base usage is like 80-100 or so
      |depending on age/gender/etc.  It is not high calorie burning
      |activity like say mild cardio exercise (which is about 600 per
      |hour). But its still not nothing.


|u/scubacatt - 20 hours
|
|Now show the amount of broken bones and head injuries


  |u/Generalaverage89 - 19 hours
  |
  |"The vast majority of injured micromobility users who end up in an
  |emergency department are treated and released without being admitted
  |in the hospital. Those with e-scooter injuries are more likely to be
  |treated and released (85%) than those with e-bike (81%) or bicycle
  |injuries (79%), although not by a large margin. Fire-related injuries
  |from a lithium battery explosion were present in one of the e-bike
  |injuries (0.2%) and two of the e-scooter injuries (0.2%). Very few
  |micromobility-related injured patients suffer fatal injuries, although
  |based on the 2021 and 2022 datasets, a slightly higher proportion of
  |cyclists suffered fatal injuries compared to e-bike and e-scooter
  |users."  https://policylab.rutgers.edu/are-e-scooter-users-more-
  |seriously-injured-than-e-bike-users-and-bicyclists/


    |u/astoriaboundagain - 13 hours
    |
    |Broken bones and head injuries (excluding traumatic brain
    |injuries) are often treated and released without hospital admission
    |Your article snippet compares treat and release vs hospital
    |admission, not occurrence of injury.


      |u/Generalaverage89 - 11 hours
      |
      |When you're that pedantic you tend to miss the point, which you
      |did.   They obviously weren't arbitrarily asking about
      |specifically broken bones and head injuries, they were making a
      |statement about their perception of the safety of e scooters.


  |u/MOOSExDREWL - 19 hours
  |
  |There's a dude on my commute route who rides a high performance
  |scooter that easily goes 40mph. Man wears zero protection, not even a
  |jacket. One day he's just going to stop showing up.


|u/Opposite-Chemistry-0 - 14 hours
|
|Yes. I once drove 10kms. It kinda felt at body. Had to take pause at 5
|km.


|u/Nzdiver81 - 4 hours
|
|50% more than almost nothing is still... almost nothing


|u/doomer_irl - 12 hours
|
|50% more energy than essentially just sitting down is… not a whole lot.


|u/unlock0 - 19 hours
|
|And how much more dangerous? The post above this was a guy breaking his
|knee and collarbone on one of these stupid things. 


  |u/dr2chase - 16 hours
  |
  |considering all sources of danger, including heart attack, diabetes,
  |stroke, and cancer, the scooter could be safer.  For biking there's at
  |least a half-dozen of those "we tracked health outcomes for a zillion
  |people" studies, [the median study](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/j
  |amainternalmedicine/fullarticle/485349) says that driving to work
  |correlates with an increased annual risk of death by about 39%
  |(statistically adjusted for all the usual).  The smallest and largest
  |increases observed were [+15%](https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/49
  |/2/477/5701524?login=false) and
  |[+69%](https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1456) .  The increase
  |numbers that I quote are 1/RR(biking).  Scootering is not bicycle
  |levels of exertion, but it's not nothing, and +39% for all causes of
  |death is pretty big.


  |u/dpm25 - 12 hours
  |
  |Cars kill 40k+ Americans a year. We can call scooters dangerous when
  |they start approaching 1/4 that.


    |u/unlock0 - 12 hours
    |
    |There aren't hundreds of millions of people putting millions of
    |miles on scooters a day.


      |u/dpm25 - 12 hours
      |
      |And there also are not scooters killing pedestrians, cyclists and
      |vulnerable road users every single day of the year. Its almost as
      |if all of the danger on the road comes from the operators of
      |multiton death machines.


  |u/gmerkron - 12 hours
  |
  |Redditors will look for anything to avoid exercise and eating healthy 


    |u/unlock0 - 12 hours
    |
    |Literally anything would be better. The E scooters have small wheels
    |that make it more likely to crash and incur injury.   Bikes, mopeds,
    |hell even Segways are better.


      |u/flac_rules - 12 hours
      |
      |They are better than cars...


      |u/gmerkron - 11 hours
      |
      |Cool story dude