[IanDrake]

Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong. Slowing down vs. braking, I mean.

If I'm going 20mph, "braking" to me means coming to a stop in an equivalent distance as a car or bike going the same speed.

Are the brakes that you've used stable at that rate of deceleration?

[ajross]

It's not so much the brakes being stable, it's the operator's body with its c.g. 1m above the board. A maximum deceleration for tires on a good road is generally 0.6-0.8G. So in order to avoid being (literally) thrown off the board the rider needs to be leaning backwards by 30-40 degrees before applying the brakes.

There's no equivalent to this behavior in any other vehicle. In a car you just hit the pedal, on a bike you just squeeze the handles and hold on, on a seque (the closest equivalent I can think of) you must lean back to actuate the stopping.

On a long board at 20mph if you "hit the brakes" you crash, period. That just doesn't sound equivalently safe to me.

[hrktb]

In a bike just sqeueezing the handle will also throw you away, especially when downhill. It takes practice as well to be able to move your gravity center backward in emergency brakings.

[oftenwrong]

It is more about using the handlebars to resist your body's forward momentum.

[zzzmarcus]

If you slam on the brakes, yes, you'll fall. However in my experience in practice it is not hard to get used to braking on a longboard. I've done it and seen lots of other people do it without crashing.

You probably don't stop as fast as you would on a car or a bike, but you learn to control the speed you stop at pretty quickly.

I don't think longboarding will ever be as safe as riding a bike, but braking isn't the biggest reason for that.

[dredmorbius]

I've had the somewhat peculiar experience of braking on a bike when the handlebars weren't completely attached to the frame.

Being able to apply a stopping force without simultaneously being able to fully brace your upper body against a solidly connected part of the bike was a very different, and to my mind, rather unsafe, condition.

I'd think liability issues would pretty grossly limit the merchantability of the powered skateboard. Electric scooters offer the benefit of a handlebar as well.

[khafra]

> There's no equivalent to this behavior in any other vehicle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puLeE7sESeI

[Tloewald]

Makes me wonder if a two wheeled longboard -- a Segway with no handlebar you ride like a longboard -- might not give us the best of both worlds.