Wash Your Hands Before And After You Use That Public Scooter – The Handlebars Have More Germs Than A Public Toilet

Are you one of those people who, like me, do the “subway lean” instead of touching one of those nasty poles or straps which have every trace of other humans’ sneezes, coughs and God-knows-what-else all over ‘em? Do you open doors at the mall with your foot or elbow? Me, too.

Can’t do that with a public scooter, though. But maybe you should. There are, as of this writing, over 103 million cases of Covid-19 in the United States. We’re not out of this yet and won’t be for some time. But a new, exhaustive new study by Velotric, maker of electric bicycles, revealed some cold, hard, nasty facts about your scooter handlebars you may want to review before your next ride.

To find out how dirty public transit is, they swabbed multiple surfaces on public scooters, bikes, and mass transit vehicles and measured their bacteria levels. Colony-forming units (CFUs) measure the number of living microbes on each item.

Key takeaways:

*A public electric scooter has 58,000 times the bacteria of a toilet seat.

*A public electric bike has 12,000 times the bacteria of a toilet seat.

*A public electric scooter has over 700 times the bacteria of a personal electric scooter.

*A public electric bike has over 800 times the bacteria of a personal electric bike.

Why? Because public scooters are probably not cleaned as often as bathrooms (how about “never?”) and are often left in public places, it makes sense that they could collect more bacteria.The toilet seat was actually cleaner than a public electric bike, which had 12,000 times more bacteria, revealed the study.

Swabbing electric bikes and scooters showed similar results. A public electric scooter had over 700 times the bacteria of a personal one. But the shared scooter was populated entirely by gram-positive rods while the private one was host only to bacillus.

Meanwhile, a personal bike had 8,000 CFUs on it; all gram-positive cocci, which can cause inflammatory disease. An occasional wipe-down with antiseptic should keep those in check, but you’ll want to sanitize public electric bikes thoroughly before every use. The one we tested had 6.5 million CFUs (more than 800 times that of the personal bike), all of which were potentially deadly gram-negative rods.

Scooter handles are not the only offenders

Mass transit can also put you in contact with a plethora of germs. Commonly touched surfaces on a train had 18 million CFUs, which is far fewer than public scooters, but still seven times more than a toothbrush holder.

Of all the commuting surfaces the company swabbed, the bus had the most microbial CFUs at 40 million. That’s four times as much bacteria as was found on a kitchen sink, a notorious spot for sneaky germs to congregate. Considering how germy these public transportation methods can be, you might want to take extra preventative measures against illness and infection if you don’t take your own vehicle to work.

The same goes for using other public facilities like gyms. Even with signs telling patrons to do their part and sanitize equipment after use, the study found that gyms can host lots of dangerous bacteria. Shared gym surfaces had even more microbes living on them than commonly germy household surfaces.

Public exercise mats had the most bacteria at 5.9 million CFUs — about four times the amount found on a computer keyboard. Public weights were also major microbe hosts with 270,000 CFUs. (That’s 19 times the amount of bacteria they found on a pet’s tennis ball.)

The train didn’t fare much better. Nearly three-quarters of the tested train’s 18 million CFUs were gram-positive rods, and the rest were gram-negative rods. Comparatively, personal cars’ mere 12,000 CFUs were mostly bacillus (an organism commonly found in soil) and some gram-positive rods.

But the germiest piece of workout equipment by far was the shared yoga mat. The one swabbed had over 200 times more CFUs than the personal mat, and a much higher percentage were disease-causing gram-positive rods. You might consider bringing your own mat to class next time.

Bottom line? Use sanitizer in public places where fingers touch anything anyone else touches, including scooters, weights, subway poles and similar. And bring your own yoga mat.