r/durham • u/furryfar • 3d ago
E-Bikes/Scooters & Children
Genuine question - parents, what is possessing you to purchase e-bikes & e-scooters for your YOUNG children?
I’ve been seeing kids 10-13 years old zooming around on neighbourhood roads without helmets & no concern for what they’re doing, how fast they’re going, cutting cars off etc. I’ve had a few close calls myself and it’s terrifying. I also work in healthcare so I’ve seen my fair share of brain injuries from this stuff and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. I would feel so guilty & responsible if I’m the one who put that in my child’s hands.
Why are you buying these for your kids!? It’s a motorized vehicle?! Genuinely, why?
Not to mention it’s illegal for kids under 16 yo to ride them.
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u/LicoriceFishhook 3d ago
I saw a man riding one with a full on toddler on it with him. Yes, he was going slower than usual but fast enough that the kid would get very hurt if he fell. People have no common sense anymore, it is incredibly alarming.
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u/SuperCycl 2d ago
Or, hear me out, the guy can't afford a car and this is his most efficient form of transportation. Durham isn't necessarily known for its excellent transit system.
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u/Ok-Barnacle-6093 2d ago
Or, hear me out, there’s no place we need to get to so badly that riding a scooter while holding a baby is advisable. Unless it’s an emergency or for vital medical appointments there are cabs, Ubers, or even calling a friend who has a car, if transit wasn’t available or efficient. Also, transit may not be great but safer than riding a scooter while holding a baby. I love how not being able to afford a car means taking one of the most dangerous forms of transportation for a baby , and a newborn at that.
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u/LicoriceFishhook 2d ago
It was in Oshawa on a street with a very frequent bus. But also I'd walk hours before putting my toddler on a scooter. In my opinion, as a mother who also has a toddler, there is no situation where this would be okay.
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u/AntiPiety 3d ago
I’m a 30 year old man and a cop in Toronto pulled me over on mine and gave me a ticket because they’re illegal all across the city lol. So maybe the under 16’s here will get busted too
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u/Adamant_TO 3d ago
Durham police don't Give a shit. It's an epidemic here. Its crazy how many of those things are ripping up and down the sidewalks.
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u/Narrow-Angle-5583 2d ago
Yup. Downtown Whitby is a glorified scooter track. I've said it before, I'll say it again. It's one of the situations that will not be addressed until a few people die from injuries, both riders and the pedestrians that are endangered because of this activity.
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u/AntiPiety 3d ago
Well they’re actually very legal here comparatively to Toronto though so it is way different.
Plus we have a lot of sidewalks that are “multi-use paths” so again they’re even legal on there too, where in Pickering for example, they’re only allowed on the road and not MUPs.
Anyway so an officer in Toronto can grab literally anybody on a scooter. But here, they would have to know the municipality’s legal nuance, and act only when they see a law being broken which is way more of a challenge.
Of course any helmet-less kid would work but yeah.
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u/Ok_Proof_6336 2d ago
Any kid. They are illegal under 16. Helmets are required for 16 and 17 year olds.
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u/AntiPiety 2d ago
Okay so your comment proved my comment correct while simultaneously proving yourself wrong?
If an officer sees a 17 year old child who is helmeted, the officer has no grounds to pull them over…Ergo, they cannot just pull over “any kid.”
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u/Ok_Proof_6336 2d ago
I classify kids as less than 16. Otherwise, where do we stop? I am not using the term minor, which would mean anyone under 18. So no, my comment neither proved yours correct nor mine wrong, you just chose to interpret my comment to your advantage. SMH.
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u/AntiPiety 2d ago
So in Canada, adults are 18 and over. It’s not really up for debate. You really do not need to take it this far to avoid being wrong.
Classification of adult status of person
1 - Adult
'Adult' refers to a person that is 18 years old or more.
2 - Child
'Child' refers to a person that is less than 18 years old.0
u/Ok_Proof_6336 2d ago
I am not going to argue semantics with you. You are being deliberately obtuse.
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u/Embarrassed-Green898 3d ago
How can the damn thing be illegal when the region itslef is running e bikes program.
We should ask the next mayor if this can be cancelled.
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u/Ok_Proof_6336 2d ago
Nope. Don’t agree. I am not for cancelling these programs. They give mobility to those that need options. Parents need to be held accountable for their children.
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u/Embarrassed-Green898 2d ago
And these options dont have to be to leave them unprotected in the way of fast moving traffic, creating more danger then the utility they provide.
As far as parents being responsible for their kids , no argument there.
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u/Ok_Proof_6336 2d ago
They are treated the same as bikes. And bikes are just as dangerous if used in the same manor as e-scooters. (Including e-bikes, when I use the term bikes.) This is why I am for infrastructure that includes bike lanes. Let’s make it safe for all.
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u/Embarrassed-Green898 2d ago
And bikes are just as dangerous if used in the same manor as e-scooters.
I agree.
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u/nishnawbe61 2d ago
The parents buying them for their kids are probably the ones who never wore helmets when they were younger...
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u/isorekt 2d ago edited 2d ago
I completely sympathize with your concerns. I'm sure it can be very terrifying to have such close calls with children.
I think the issue we're all ignoring here is that all of this shows that there desire for kids to have independent mobility.
This desire exists both for kids and parents. As a kid, being trapped in your own house, only being able to go anywhere when your parents drive you can be so depressing. As a busy parent, having to drive your kid everywhere they want to go is incredibly challenging. Unfortunately, walking distances are too far, and transit is barely functional, so there are very few options.
Sometimes it gets bad enough that people will just take risks. I mean people do this with driving too. It's an incredibly risky activity (roughly 6 people get injured and 1 person dies every two days in the GTA from car accidents). But people still drive. Because it's the only viable option right now for most areas.
The real question we should be asking is, why have we designed an environment where anyone feels that taking such a risk is needed. Why have we created an environment where kids don't have independent mobility unless they live in downtown Toronto or until they turn 16 and can finally start getting a drivers' license? Why have we created an environment where it is so dangerous for anyone (child or adult alike) to get where they want to go? Is that the world we really want to live in?
We need to address the disease, not the symptom.
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u/furryfar 2d ago
The children in my neighborhood aren’t trying to go anywhere. They simply race around the streets like they’re on a go kart track. I’ve sat on my porch and watched them.
I’ve also seen high school kids on the road riding home from the local high school, a distance that isn’t more than 20 minutes each way - which I used to walk every single day when I was in high school.
So although you may be right in some cases, in a lot of cases it is not correct.
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u/isorekt 2d ago
I'm not saying I'm right in every case. I absolutely agree with you that there definitely are very foolish users of this technology (just like any technology).
But I also do think parents have legitimate reasons for buying their kids these devices.
It's the same argument with cell phones.
Has social media destroyed kids attention spans and led to brain rot? Yes. Do kids use cell phones to do terrible things online? Yes. Are predators out there waiting to take advantage of a naive child through their cell phone? Yes.
Should parents stop buying their kids cell phones? Probably not. Should we instead work to create a better and safer online environment? Absolutely.
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u/CrasyMike 3d ago
When I grew up, when I left school I'd hang out with kids on the street. They were not always the same friends from school because my friends from school might be 10, 20, 30 minutes walk or a solid half hour bike a different direction from school. You'd hang with the kids on the street and occasionally get a ride or bike to people further away.
MSN became really popular while I was growing up and that made me so much closer with those people that were further away. We'd spend hours and hours chatting and I'd spend less time with the guys on my street, balancing my time between them.
Now it's gone fully the other way. There is no reason to be friends with the kid on the street that is a different age, or in another school. You don't know em, and never will. You can talk to your friends from school anytime with your phone, you can make new friends from further away, you can make friends of friends from another school district entirely. And if you wanna hang out with anyone, ever, at all, they might be like a solid 20km away.
So you beg BEG BEGGGG your parents for an ebike. Unplug it and open the throttle to 100% until you meet up with one friend, then drive more to meet up with a third friend. It's commuting.
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u/queuedUp 2d ago
My take away from this trainwreak of a comment is you were too lazy to walk even 10 minutes to meet up with friends.
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u/CrasyMike 2d ago
I did that all the time. My bike wouldn't get out away till it snowed, but when I was younger there was incentive to hang out with whoever was more local, especially during summer. With escooters, you've got kids that are basically commuters now - anyone in a 20km radius is "local" if you can convince your parents to buy one. There was plenty of good reason in the past to hang out with kids that lived within a min or two walk.
People can dislike my comment, and maybe they don't like it because they see it as an excuse for kids to buy escooters or see it as supportive of why they want them. In reality, I hate to see them as much as anyone. Two kids have been run over behind my house, one by a truck. I feel conflicted about overreach but they should be restricted or outright disallowed.
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u/queuedUp 2d ago
Pretty sure the reason people don't like your comment has nothing to do with wanting to buy their kids scooters and more because it comes across as pretentious
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u/UnderwateredFish 3d ago
I'm not one of those parents but I'm going to assume they don't care or dont know (their child is using them, ie. friend's scooter). I see kids on my street, they look to be about 6-9 and they are going full speed down the middle of the road with no helmet. I am in the middle of a community so there may be a false sense of security from road traffic. I cannot clearly see them coming around the corner at that speed.