#The Taur electric scooter prioritizes safety with giant tires and a forward riding position

“#The Taur electric scooter prioritizes safety with giant tires and a forward riding position”

One of the biggest reasons I tend to gravitate towards my ebikes rather than electric scooters is safety: I feel much more comfortable with big ol’ wheels than with the tiny wheels on most electric scooters on pothole-strewn city streets.

Now a scooter startup called Taur, which launched its first product on Kickstarter this week, thinks it can make a safer, more stable scooter ride, in a package that otherwise looks pretty sleek too.

The Taur scooter’s pneumatic balloon tires are 12.5-inches wide, which is far larger than the 8-ish inch tires you’ll typically see on scooters. Moreover, they’re actually a name-brand product from Continental and have a Kevlar puncture protection layer, which should provide some additional peace of mind.

Though there’s no separate suspension, in my experience, big chunky tires can make for a more comfortable ride than suspension on lesser tires. I also appreciate that the Taur’s tires can be changed “approximately 5 minutes,” just like you’d change a bike’s. Changing the tires on other scooters can be a massive pain in the butt.

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But the Taur’s most unique selling point is that the scooter allows you to face completely forward, rather than the sideways position required by typical electric scooters. At “2.5x wider than a typical scooter deck,” company claims its scooter should provide a significantly more stable ride and better maneuverability than typical scooters. The forward-facing position also gives your head a more useful range of motion for traffic awareness — an important part of staying safe on city streets, especially when there isn’t a dedicated bike lane.