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CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

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Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#361

Post by lstodd »

antihero wrote: post #164
eagleinparadise wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner was hospitalized for nearly a week and had to have facial reconstructive surgery and nearly lost all her teeth after she got hit by someone on a scooter going 25mph while we were walking Be careful out there if you combine speed + unprotected mode of transportation

I for one think the future where we all walk around in cyberpunk body armour to protect ourselves from wayward idiots on powered transportation they are unable to control would be kind of sick

You meant 'slick'? I agree. This is how it was with motorcycling in cities for the last 30 years.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#362

Post by Broken_Hippo »

nraynaud wrote: post #192
0_____0 wrote: post #23

One issue I've noticed with these new forms of electric wheeled transport (longboard, transverse and longitudinal one-wheelers) is that the people riding them often don't come from a sports background. They aren't "safe" devices exactly - it takes skill to pilot them, and when things inevitably go awry, it takes good reflexes to avoid damage. Novices to action sports often throw their arms out to catch themselves whe…

funny, I was about to build and electric skateboard, then I thought: "hum, I'm an out of shape 100+ kg slob, maybe 1) I shouldn't take a heavy fall from a standing position 2) use my muscles for transportation". So I got a non-electric bike, because I'm too lazy to walk.

To be fair: I simply cannot ride a bike in my area - I moved to a mountainous area about 10 years ago. I'm fine on flat stretches, obviously OK downhill, but uphill is a struggle. A half a mile uphill is no joke. I walk because I can't realistically ride a bike. An e-bike would allow for slightly faster transportation and the ability to go up somewhat steep inclines. Since the ones around here are all electric-assisted (you still have to pedal), it means that I'd at least get some movement out of it.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#363

Post by Grazester »

butterguns wrote: post #143
0_____0 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your latter point is why I'm not really sold on electric longboards. Your control authority on a longboard is pretty low, and you need a lot of control authority to react to surprise obstacles/maintain stability after encountering one. Sure, DH longboarders exceed 25mph regularly, but they ride in semi-controlled environments (scout the descent for gravel etc before hitting it) and are exceptionally skilled. Putting…

I rode a Boosted Board for the best part of 1 year on the streets of Brooklyn. I ended up selling it; although I absolutely loved the experience, I knew one day I would rip my face off if I encountered even a small pothole.

And there are many on the streets of NYC

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#364

Post by Gatsky »

CharlesW wrote: post #93
shockeychap wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a link to a video describing a specific bug in the product. It's just a link to a search of "onewheel injuries" in YouTube, which presents a variety of videos detailing all manner of injuries that come from operator error and the inherent dangers of OneWheel operation. Try searching for "mountain bike injuries" and see what you get. Is there anything else? (I'm sincerely interested. The CPSC article clear…

> (I'm sincerely interested. The CPSC article clearly infers a situation in which it suddenly stops. Is this confirmed?) The first few seconds of this 2-year-old video shows it happening to Adam Savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys3ivCUxIvY What I'm finding after some light digging is that this "nosedive" problem has seemingly been injuring people for years. There's apparently even a small ecosystem of add-on p…

That Adam Savage footage… Ok, thanks, never getting on one of these things.

It is just a flawed concept basically.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#365

Post by everyone »

anon334455 wrote: post #182
eagleinparadise wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My partner was hospitalized for nearly a week and had to have facial reconstructive surgery and nearly lost all her teeth after she got hit by someone on a scooter going 25mph while we were walking Be careful out there if you combine speed + unprotected mode of transportation

Created a new account to warn everyone to be more aware around street corners. I once tried to catch a train so I rode a scooter on the sidewalk which I normally don't. Seeing no cars, I didn't slow too much at a street corner, and ran into someone. Luckily the top speed on the scooter was 15mph and I slowed to probably 13mph, but still, the force was too much and the person failed pretty hard. I swear to never do th…

This highlights another big issue. You were riding your vehicle on the footpath. Vehicles of all types should be on roads, not a footpath which is for people on foot. But in many countries for decades the road has been an incredibly hostile place for any mode of transport other than a car. As usual the person with the smaller mode of transport suffers the biggest injustice, in your case the pedestrian.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#366

Post by aksss »

strix_varius wrote: post #296
closetohome wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are warnings on the box, in the manual, on a piece of cardboard you have to remove to ride the board, and laser marked on the board itself.

Disagree. All the warnings suggest rider error. I suspect that if they published, "We've determined that, on average, approximately once every N miles, a onewheel is likely to briefly fail to deliver power to its motor, throwing its rider at whatever speed it's moving," they would sell far fewer of these items.

Yeah but that’s not the case. You see a lot of the injuries because people on Reddit and YouTube and discord like to show them off, but in grand scheme of things most of these riders will tell you they were being idiots (like riding drunk at night, pushing 30 down a hill, trying to hop curbs at speed, ignoring pushback, etc), and many hop back on their board as soon as they can. The few that weren’t being idiots, well a fraction were lousy or inattentive riders and some fraction suffered a failure. What you’re not seeing is all the riders and boards with zero problems.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#367

Post by toxik »

taylorlapeyre wrote: post #17

The physics of Onewheels are actually super interesting, and Future Motion published an extremely well-made video recently which explains the issue that the CPSC is referring to. It goes into detail about why "nosedives" happen, and how to prevent them. Really interesting stuff! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGn7iPN07XI

It seems to me that the correct behavior to encourage braking from the user is TILT FORWARD, i.e., show that you are nearly at the limit but do it before you're outside of controllable phase space.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#368

Post by drewm1980 »

butterguns wrote: post #152
ramesh31 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how to fall is such an incredibly important life skill, it's baffling to watch people who never learned it. As a ski instructor, you could instantly tell from their first fall the kids who would get it and stick with it from the ones who would be sitting in the lodge pouting after an hour.

I know how to fall (intellectually). How do I translate that into the real world? I took a nasty fall on my MTB this summer, broke my shoulder. Everything was instinctual and a blur. Can we somehow retrain our innate responses?

I have had reflexes learned from contact improvisation kick in during a couple random low speed falls from standing or walking/tripping. I had a feeling of "ah I have been here before" as I fell. Maybe not relevant to oneboard speeds, but relevant if you trip on a toy or kid in your house, or slip on some ice outside.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#369

Post by Karliss »

WD-42 wrote: post #176
Glide wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something more inherent that makes an electric unicycles more dangerous, other than they make them go ridiculous speeds? I would have thought the larger wheel on an EUC made it more stable and the higher power makes it not have to nosedive. I kind of prefer e-bikes because they are well… normal.

I think it really comes down to the fact that these single wheelers don't support the operator without power. You can stand on skateboard, slow down, and come to a complete halt and it's still working as intended. On a bike you will eventually topple from one side or the other, but the way a bikes works means the rider is supported in a natural position for a long time. When the one-wheeler loses power it just nosedi…

Isn't the question about one wheel(skateboard with gokart wheel) vs electric unicycle (single bigger wheel between the legs closer driving position to real unicycle)? Not about one wheel vs other more typical vehicles. Both have one wheel but they are two completely different things.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#370

Post by ekidd »

0_____0 wrote: post #42
roughly wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I picked up an e-bike not too long ago and took a bit to decide between class 2 and class 3 - I didn’t have enough experience with a bike and a speedometer to gauge whether the 20mph limit on class 2 would be enough. Having ridden around for a while now, yeah, absolutely agree - anything over ~15-20mph is above my comfort zone for “able to adjust to sudden changes in the environment.” Folks who get the “class 4”s are…

A new e-bike rider who suddenly is capable of 20mph and has no experience to the contrary might assume (wrongly) that they can navigate safely at that speed. Cyclists who can maintain 20+ mph on flat ground (not at all uncommon!) will have many more riding hours under their belts, and the commensurate handling skills and instincts.

Huh, I used to commute on a mountain bike in Somerville, MA. There were a couple of sections where I normally hit 20-25 mph on downhills. (Ones with no side roads to the right, and no tight corners.)

I wouldn't have wanted to wipe out or go over the handlebars at that speed. But on a familiar road, with 26" knobby tires and a front suspension, I had reliable control. The gyroscope effect of mountain bike rims is substantial at 25 mph. And a mountain bike is usually fine even on awful pavement, especially for someone who also rides in the woods.

The biggest danger by far in that scenario was Boston drivers. All the injuries I ever heard of were cars doing something illegal, or people getting doored on the Central Square bike lane. Overall, the statistics are pretty decent for experienced cyclists, if they're riding their daily commute and obeying traffic laws.

For an ebike, I'd want to stick with max 20mph pedal assist, and full size tires. And I'd want something I could ride onto a soft shoulder at full speed. So probably knobby tires and a front shock? If I can't drop 2" onto a sand shoulder, then I'm going too fast.

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