Are Scooters Really Safer Than Motorcycles? This is What the Research Says

If you want to know where the scooters are safer than motorcycles, then this video is for you

Hi, I'm Francois from AdventureBike Troop.com, where we chat about bike riding, maintenance, travel tips and scooter safety and more

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Now are scooters safer than bikes? A lot of non-riders will say yes because they're slow and small and a lot of bike riders or

motorcyclists will say no because they're stupid and slow. So what does the research say

Now I did research, I looked for papers, peer-reviewed research papers, not the stuff you see

on forums and Facebook and so I looked on Google Scholar basically to find a research papers

to find proper research on this and there's not a lot of research on scooter versus bike safety

and the reason for that is most two-wheeled motorized accidents are not categorized as scooters

or bikes instead they all are classified as motorcycles so it's difficult to distinguish between the two

but one study that did go this far was done in queensland australia where they looked at

the registration details of the vehicles in the accidents so they could categorize it between

which we're going to ignore because they don't need rider training that's a small

49 cc and below and then scooters and motorcycles now most of the vehicles in these accidents

there was about 7,000 most of them were motorcycles but there were about i think it was 95 that were

scooters you can go and check the study in the link below and what they found was that single

vehicle accidents are it more likely to be a motorcycle so So 34 of crashes a single vehicle crashes or motorcycles 34 of motorcycle crashes were single vehicles so the motorcycle crashed all on its own

whereas only 21% of the scooters were a single vehicle accident the rest of the time it was

something else hitting the scooter or it crashed into something etc where the riders were at fault

according to police reports 59% of the bike accident was the bikers fault or were the bikers fault and only 45% were the scooters fault

That means the bikes or it suggests that the bikes are more dangerous or at least

causing the accidents. If we look at the gender of the riders, not that this is at all

relevant of motorcycle crashes 94% were male and the then of scooters, 79% were female. This could also just be that more females rides to scooters

and that's why more females crash on the scooters. If you look at the age of the riders, the

median age of scooters are higher than the bikes, more older people ride scooters. If you look at

the contributing circumstances, so why do they crash? The biggest reason is inattention

distraction and negligence and this is the same for both. About 17 to 18

for bikes and scooters. But if you look at other reasons, the bad stuff, speed-related, drunk driving, violating traffic

rules, dangerous riding, this is where bikes are more of the culprits, 23% versus 15%

The only one where the scooters beat the bikes is the violation of traffic rules

That is possibly because of inexperienced. It's so much easier to just get on a scooter and ride or to pass your test on a scooter

and get on in traffic so they are possibly generally less experienced so a lot of qualifications when we chat about this Okay so scooters are less likely to crash alone

They need something else to hit them to crash. Motorcyclists are good at just falling off their bikes

Bikers on average are also more likely to take higher risks. And this is supported by the fact that more bike accidents happen on the weekend

so fun rides and scooters usually during weekdays. days commuters people responsible people trying to save money and bikers also generally

ride for fun and social acceptance very mature right and then okay so so those are the

stats now let's look at more anecdotal evidence what is the people out there on the

forums Facebook and in real life over the years I've chatted to many riders about this

what do they feel now what makes scooters more dangerous generally people feel scooters are more dangerous

because of the riding position you've got your feet flat on a deck you sit

almost in the same position as you sit in the office chair you don't have control over the bike because you can't clutch it with your knees and throw it

around it's got smaller wheels are easier to if it hits something to lose

control and the lack of power a lot of bikers say scooters are dangerous because

they are slow if something's coming on to heat you you can't

get out of the way you can't just gear down and pop a wheelie out of the way of the bus but the

stats or the the study said scooters are equally likely to get rear in it as bikes or bikes are

equally likely to get rear in it as scooters so it's not as if they are getting out of the way

faster so what makes bikes more dangerous why do people and my dad like when i was in school

i rode a scooter i had lots of scooters because he thought it was safer and he didn't want me to

a bike Now why do we think scooters are or bikes are more dangers Well they are faster if you put a 16 year old boy or a girl on a Yamaha r6 with 100 horsepower the chance of getting

into trouble is much more likely than a small little moped with I don't know

15 horsepower 20 I don't know how fast they are but then you get stuff like the

Jalera 800 that does 200 something kilometers per hour, it weighs 235 kilograms, it's a fast, zero to hundred and five seconds. So I've been on that

bike or that scooter and it's pretty quick. Then bikes are usually heavier. If you think of a

Harley or a big BMW, if you put your foot down in traffic, it's so much easier to lose control

and fall over. With a little scooter, you can just, yeah, you don't fall over with a scooter

except if, yeah, if something hits you, like a bus. Then something else that they

say makes bikes more dangerous is there's more controls you've got the throttle the

front brake the rear brake in your foot your clutch you've got your gear so all

your your limbs are basically doing controls at the same time but that arguably

makes it safer because you have less inexperienced riders on bikes in the

traffic than on scooter so it's easy to pass your test on a scooter you just get on

twist the throttle grab the brakes like a bicycle and off you go into the

traffic so while the research is inconclusive the very limited research at least

suggest that scooter riders are less likely to be hooligans and that's why they

crash less that's basically what the study said so if you agree or disagree I'd

love to hear from you do you think scooters are safer than bikes do you think

bikes are safer than scooters or do you think it's just up to the rider on the

machine please let me know and if you like this video please consider subscribing

and checking out the other videos on this channel thank you for joining and i'll see you next week