Should it be legal for kids to ride ebikes?
- Thread starter Timpo
- Start date
Just checked, yes my 12 yo was wearing his $200 mips helmet , gloves and $100 knee pads in the pic of him jumping. I'll have to talk with him about his elbow guards, though
ActionJackson
Well-Known Member
- Region
- Asia
- City
- Tokyo
Yeah why not? Rational people will put a helmet on and keep riding. Irrational people will walk away angry. Nothing wrong with that result!
I knew a guy a few years ago that never wore a helmet when riding his Harley. One day he got sun in his eyes and rode into the back of a car that was stopped to make a left turn. He spent the next week in a coma. After getting out of the hospital he bought a brand new Harley but guess what he didn't buy. Talk about irrational.
WINNER!!!
Comfortably Numb
Well-Known Member
I always wore all the gear on motorcycles but bicycles were a completely different thing.
Some of the stuff we did then I just shake my head now.
We were into everything. We could have offed ourselves with any number of other devices we experimented with. CN
Comfortably Numb
Well-Known Member
Helmets are mandatory here but about 50% wear them. Obviously not much enforcement.
Regarding helmet laws killing ridership...I think bike theft is the real killer of cycling. You can’t leave anything, anywhere without it getting pinched.
Sad. CN
Looking at these pictures, these kids look like they're not overweight. In North America, the UK and more and more the EU where there is a virtual epidemic of childhood obesity why should anyone encourage kids to exercise less? Yeah you can get some exercise from an ebike but it's nowhere the same as riding a real bike and unlike older people except in rare cases kids don't have health or mobility issues that require an ebike. Pretty soon everyone is going to look like a beached whale, "body shaming" or not being overweight is not healthy - physically or mentally.
J.R.
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Piedmont Highlands
The biggest hurdle is breaking screen addiction. You'd be surprised how many calories an emtb rider can burn. Motocross is also very physical. A road riding motorcyclist burns 40% more calories than a car driver and because it's an activity, riders tend to spend more time doing it. We have to get the kids outside and riding something. All options need to be utilized where possible.
chunk
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
At the risk of sounding like an old geezer, we had no computers, 13 OTA channels on TV and the stations went off at night. No fast food to speak of, McDonald's was just becoming a thing at the time. We played football in the street and pedaled our stingray bikes everywhere we wanted to go. No car rides anywhere. For real, I had to walk 2 miles each way to school, (no it wasn't uphill in the snow), but there were no fat kids. Home cooking and physical activity, so simple.
rawlus
Active Member
- Region
- USA
Well parents are primarily if not exclusively to blame for this. When parents began wanting their kids to like them as a friend is when it all went off the rails. lol. Divorced parents one-upping the other is also a big contributor to this situation. lol.
. But i hate kids so my feelings may not be aligned with the majority.
Sorry, but it IS possible to develop a young human who is active, capable of making their own risk decisions, and almost freindly.
I have the average 2.5 ...and really should have read the fine print on that figure....
ruffruff
Well-Known Member
Yep, I've got one too! He is a wonderful human being!
mjeds
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
a parent cannot teach what they were never taught by their parents.
the last two generations of kids have been on their own for the most part because their parents never taught them anything, they let TV and social media do it.
Dallant
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
Simply not true. Assumes we only learn from our parents which is hogwash.
mjeds
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
not what I said, you are reading too much into it. or perhaps not enough into it.
a parent can't give life or emotional skills to a child they never learned themselves. Children learn from many sources, but their base "programming" comes from their parents and family members.
some examples:
parents that don't cook then don't teach their kids to cook so the kid grows up with no ability to cook for themselves.
parents that don't have mechanical skills then don't teach those skills, have kids that grow up with no ability to repair something themselves.
parents that don't have basic sense and don't think before they act, but have a "knee-jerk" reaction to situations, don't teach this to their kids and the kids grow up making irrational decisions and not thinking through before acting.
it extends to being honest/dishonest, healthy relationships, handling difficult emotions, learning to say no, facing failure/rejection/criticism, taking chances and risk, taking care of oneself emotionally, financially, physically, mentally, being practical or creative.
Parents that don't know how to do these things, can't teach it to their children, teachers and schools don't. This is very will known fact and addressed in child psychology all the time.
There are always exceptions, some kids figure things out for themselves along the way, but the hard fact is that if a parent doesn't instill basic life and emotional skills into their children, those children grow up without those skills and have a hard time navigating adulthood.
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