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A comment on CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards. Parent comment

Re:CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing... by frankus on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @08:40PM (#33633807)
It looks like most death rates for transportation products are measured in deaths per 100 million passenger miles. So 8 deaths seems like a reasonable estimate.

By comparison, cars are about 1.5 deaths, and motorcycles are 25-30.

For the car number, I'm willing to bet that OneWheel riders skew younger and male-er than the general driving population. I'd bet the risk difference mostly disappears if you're comparing similar demographics.

For the motorcycle number, keep in mind that you can't legally ride a motorcycle without a license and some training and/or non-trivial testing. And most riders wear much more extensive PPE than the average OneWheel rider. And they're still at something like 300–400% of the risk.

I think it kind of comes down to whether you think of a OneWheel as a toy, a recreational product, or a form of transportation. It's ridiculously unsafe compared with, say, a boardgame, and probably on par with recreational products like skateboards and jet skis, and somewhere in the middle between driving a car and riding a motorcycle for transportation.

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Re:CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing... by MivLives on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @10:13PM (#33634479)
The riders skew older then you think. I'd say the average rider I've met is about 35. Male dominated of courses.

This is a toy. Very few people not working can afford a 1.5k-2k electric vehicle, especially when you can grab an escooter/ebike for about half the price.

The issue I think they're going for here is the sudden lack of power which happens sometimes. Anecdotally it happened to maybe 3 people who publicly stated as such in a 60 person rider group. A ton of people have broken collar bones on these things, and it's an almost expected injury if you use it long enough.

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Re:CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing... by frankus on Thursday November 17, 2022 @10:46AM (#33640584)
One caveat here is that it’s not clear if it’s “4 deaths downstream of the procurement of a OneWheel” or “4 deaths attributable to this particular failure mode”.

There might be some number of “died riding a OneWheel after getting hit by a car” deaths, but arguably that particular type of fatality should be chalked up as “downstream of the procurement of a car”.

[ Parent | on HN ]