SAN FRANCISCO – A 77-year-old man was killed after being hit by an electric scooter while crossing a street in downtown San Francisco in July, the type of serious scooter-pedestrian collision the city’s police department calls “uncommon.’’
Other types of e-scooter accidents that result in a trip to the emergency room, however, are becoming all too frequent across the nation.
The growing popularity of electric scooters – easily accessible for commuters to reach their final destination or tourists to enjoy sightseeing – has been accompanied by skyrocketing numbers of injuries, typically to the riders and at times to others in their way.
A 2023 report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission revealed that from 2017 – when the devices were first introduced at scale – through 2022, the U.S. recorded 360,800 ER visits related to e-bikes, e-scooters and hoverboards, known collectively as micromobility vehicles.
Of those visits, 169,300 were linked to the scooters, or 47%. By comparison, ER trips stemming from e-bike accidents added up to 53,200, or less than 15%.
Just as concerning, of the 233 micromobility-related deaths the CPSC registered through that six-year stretch, nearly half (111) were from e-scooter incidents, usually as a result of collisions with cars and/or control issues.
Scooters mistakenly seen as ‘very low risk’
After a dip in the early part of the COVID pandemic, the ER-worthy injuries related to powered scooters – mostly the electric variety – have steadily risen from just under 30,000 in 2020 to 118,485 last year, nearly twice the 2023 total (64,329).
“People view scooters as very, very low risk for some reason, but we do see broken wrists, head injuries, neck injuries, cervical injuries. Those are all very common,” said Dr. Eric Cioe-Peña, associate professor of emergency medicine and vice president of Northwell’s Center for Global Health in Long Island, New York.
Cioe-Peña has noticed the surge in injuries over the last five years, coinciding with the rise in e-scooter ridership. According to data from the National Association of City Transportation Officials, dockless scooter ridership in the U.S. was up to 65 million in 2023, the latest year for which the nonprofit has statistics.
As of 2024, there were 130 American cities with e-scooter-sharing programs, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics says. And a recent report projects the North American market for e-bikes and e-scooters to grow from about $500 million last year to more than $3 billion by 2033.
Ignoring traffic rules and neglecting protection
All those rides will inevitably lead to more injuries, and Cioe-Peña expressed concern about the number or riders who ignore the rules of the road – such as blowing past stop signs – and neglect to wear protective equipment, especially helmets.
He said the worst e-scooter injuries he has seen at the ER involved a helmetless rider in Staten Island whose vehicle’s front wheel hit an irregular spot on the street – possibly a storm drain slot – and was catapulted over the handlebar. The rider landed on concrete, sustaining a severe concussion and ankle and wrist fractures.
“The pedestrian risk is more sensational,” Cioe-Peña said, “but the real burden of disease is head injuries with unhelmeted riders.”
Studies of helmet use among e-scooter riders are scarce but generally show low percentages, as little as 2%.
Alex Engel, a spokesperson for NACTO, said most of e-scooter injuries are sustained by riders, who are vulnerable to potholes or small objects on the road causing accidents.
“With e-scooters the center of gravity is much higher because you’re standing on them, and because the wheels are much smaller and there’s in general much less shock (absorption), pavement quality tends to matter a lot more than it does for bikes or e-bikes,” Engel said.
A need for more safe places to ride
Still, he pointed out cars are by far the biggest danger to riders, which makes the significant increase in bike lanes across many cities a welcome development for micromobility fans.
“The most important thing any city can do is providing safe places for people to ride,” Engel said. “That provides space for those who are already riding, and it encourages more ridership. There’s safety in numbers.’’
Few if any cities have bike lanes on every street, and it’s not uncommon to see e-scooters on sidewalks, which is generally against the law. Though civic leaders tend to appreciate the e-scooters’ eco-friendly convenience, a few cities and two states – Pennsylvania and Delaware – have effectively banned them from public roads.
There’s wide variation in state and municipal regulations regarding e-scooters, from minimum age requirements to whether riding on sidewalks is allowed, leading to confusion among practitioners.
While more than 30 states have set speed limits of between 15 mph and 20 mph, another six permit riders to go at least as fast as 25 mph, according to a detailed guide on the webpage of scooter maker Unagi.
Lax enforcement of regulations
The regulations are not commonly known and rarely enforced, said Joseph Schofer, a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University who specializes in transportation issues.
“A teenager riding a scooter, my sense is they have no obligation to get training,” Schofer said. “And if there is, there’s no way to enforce it.”
He remembers a few years ago seeing a man on a rental e-scooter riding around Washington, D.C., with his child, maybe 2 or 3 years old, on his shoulders. It was a reminder of the need for better public education regarding these contraptions, not to mention common sense.
Schofer said he sees the value in efficient conveyances like e-scooters, which can make it easier to navigate city streets. He also wonders about the risk involved, especially for young riders and tourists who may not be familiar with a town’s layout and traffic patterns.
“You have a really cheap avenue to getting access to motorized transportation, and to young people who aren’t licensed drivers, and to people of limited income, it’s very appealing,” he said. “So how do you make this work?”
‘A place in the transportation ecosystem’
Dr. Ben Breyer, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, said that’s where city involvement comes in. Breyer spent 10 years at San Francisco’s leading trauma center and conducted several studies on bicycle trauma.
More recently, he collaborated in a widely cited UCSF study published last summer that found nationwide e-bike injuries nearly doubled and e-scooter injuries rose by more than 45% every year from 2017-2022.
Despite that, Breyer’s likes the potential for these vehicles.
“These kind of micromobility options do have a place in the transportation ecosystem,” he said. “They help keep cars off the road, they help decrease congestion, they help people make that final mile in their commute. I think we need more infrastructure to help support riders, and there may need to be some regulations on maximum speeds and these kind of things to help ensure folks ride safely.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Are electric scooters safe? Injuries, deaths raise concerns.
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