Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C4L5UUmrBLK/ Injuries to electric bike riders have spiked 30 fold over the past 5 years.  This from a UC-San Francisco reviews of data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System that covers data from all US emergency departments. Over the same period, e-bike related hospitalizations increased 43-fold,  ebike injuries in children under 18 increased from none to 13% of all injuries while those in riders 18 to 34 years dropped from 63% to 30% of total injuries, and ebike associated head trauma surged 49 fold. Digging a bit further into the head injuries, the data showed a drop in helmet use of 5.6% for each of the 5 years totaling 28% over the 5 year study period.  The odds of sustaining a significant head injury DOUBLED if you weren’t wearing a helmet. E-bikes are ever more popular with the new imports increasing 2.5 fold over the 5 years to 1.1 million in 2022.  Compared with previous studies, this latest one shows an alarming increase in head injuries.