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Transportation United States

Boom in Electric Scooters Leads To More Injuries, Fatalities (autoblog.com) 236

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
As stand-up electric scooters have rolled into more than 100 cities worldwide, many of the people riding them are ending up in the emergency room with serious injuries. Others have been killed. From a report: There are no comprehensive statistics available but a rough count by The Associated Press of media reports turned up at least 11 electric scooter rider deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018. Nine were on rented scooters and two on ones the victims owned. With summer fast approaching, the numbers will undoubtedly grow as more riders take to the streets. Despite the risks, demand for the two-wheeled scooters continues to soar, popularized by companies like Lime and Bird. In the U.S. alone, riders took 38.5 million trips on rentable scooters in 2018, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials. Riders adore the free-flying feel of the scooters that have a base the size of a skateboard and can rev up to 15 miles per hour. They're also cheap and convenient, costing about $1 to unlock with a smartphone app and about 15 cents per minute to ride. And in many cities, they can be dropped off just about anywhere after a rider reaches their destination. But pedestrians and motorists scorn the scooters as a nuisance at best and a danger at worst.
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Boom in Electric Scooters Leads To More Injuries, Fatalities More

Boom in Electric Scooters Leads To More Injuries, Fatalities

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  • "Excellent... " (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @12:33PM (#58745762)

    All is proceeding as I have forseen. In the absence of natural selection, this will fucking do.

    • Compared to cars, bikes in cities, pedestrians etc.

      Then it could be evaluated reasonably, but the headlines would be much less click-baity.

  • What happened to all the pogo sticks? (Score:5, Funny)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @12:35PM (#58745770) Homepage Journal
    I thought the new company promoting ride sharing pogo sticks would have taken care all the scooter problems?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      My dad was an emergency room doctor from the late 60's into the 2000's. It was pogo sticks, then roller skates, then skateboards, then trampolines, then rollerblades. Not to mention lawn darts, BB guns, and probably people threw out their backs with hula hoops. Better headline: new fad/toy/conveyance causes injury.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by That YouTube Guy ( 5905468 )
      The nuclear-powered pogo stick never took off. So, meh.

  • * Renting a scooter is very convenient.

    * Renting a helmet is not, and who wants to rent a helmet someone else just wore, anyway?

    * Carrying your own helmet around is very inconvenient.

    * Riding a scooter without a helmet seems a lot safer than it is.

    So, people rent scooters and ride without helmets. No surprise there are more injuries.

    Oh, ditto for rental bikes.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
      Or, why not just be an adult and:

      1. If it isn't too far...WALK.

      2. Buy and ride a damned bicycle.

      3. Buy and drive a fucking car like pretty much everyone else.

      • Re:Problems with rented scooters (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @12:52PM (#58745858)

        I am not sure where you are differentiating being an adult and ride sharing scooters?

        1. If it isn't too far... WALK. Adult often have a strict schedule, where they may need to be at a place at a particular time, While Walking is a good method of transit (in a city) it may take you too long to get somewhere, or when you do you are covered in sweat and giving a bad impression.

        2. Buy and ride a bicycle. Adults who have to travel to a location, will need a place to store their owned bicycle, otherwise it can get stolen. Ride Sharing allows you to drop it off, and not worry that that particular scooter will be available when you get out of your location. Also many adults commute to the city, where there owned bike cannot be transported easilly via train, or their own car.

        3. Use your own car. So to transport a local area, you need something that takes 50+ square feet. of space. In a City, you are going to fight traffic and have a hard time parking. Adults while may have a car, may realize it isn't the best tool for that environment.

        • Re:Problems with rented scooters (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @01:16PM (#58746024) Homepage Journal

          In a City, you are going to fight traffic and have a hard time parking.

          Most people don't live in an urban nightmare where everyone is stacked upon one another like NYC or Chicago...or overcrowded like L.A.....

          It simply isn't that bad in most cities across the US.

          That, and don't most people generally go to their worksite, and STAY there to work all day, pretty much only leaving to go home?

          • "Urban nightmare"? Why are the rents so high there, due to all the people wanting to live there, if it's a nightmare?

          • Most people don't live in an urban nightmare where everyone is stacked upon one another like NYC or Chicago...or overcrowded like L.A.....

            That's because you arbitrarily defined the "nightmare" to mean 3 cities. The reality is the USA has an incredibly high urbanisation rate with the vast majority in fact living in cities which benefit from the forms of transport the GP mentioned, and when you look at the three options available you find that the reasons for using them can be expanded to any city including ones typified by large urban sprawl and still have the same outcome.

            I don't live in your personal definition of a nightmare, a small city o

          • And most of these electric scooters are not deployed in places like Cheyenne or even Bakersfield but rather in places like NYC or Chicago. You know, those 'urban nightmares' you dismiss as being unlike most cities? It is almost as if the people trying to make money off these things focus them on areas where the arguments in favor of them apply most strongly! Damn those dirty liberal capitalists, keeping all of those things you don't want away from you!

        • Use your own car. [...] In a City, you are going to fight traffic

          No, you're not "fighting" traffic, you *are* traffic

      • Or, why not just be an adult and:

        1. If it isn't too far...WALK.

        2. Buy and ride a damned bicycle.

        3. Buy and drive a fucking car like pretty much everyone else.

        We have bike share docks around the downtown area here in Detroit. I've found myself using them a lot more than I'd originally thought I would, despite having a car and multiple bikes.

        The big benefits vs other options (I'd imagine that the appeal of scooters is pretty similar):

        • It makes a bike accessible when it's not practical to ride in to work. Between the distance from home, poorly maintained roads / sidewalks, and some sketchy areas that I'm not fond of riding through in late evenings or early mor
        • I can see the bike or scooter thing for the sort times of the year when the weather permits.

          Doesn't it get very snowy, icy and COLD up there in detroit for a good part of the year? How hot and humid and long are the summers?

          Rain much?

          I'm game to not use a car and walk, ride or scooter if I had them around on the few sunny days with lower humidity and only in the mid 70's temperature wise.

          It just isn't practical for the most part....

          • Looking back at my trip history, I've been out roughly once a week most months with some gaps when the weather was particularly bad or things got too busy at work to get out for lunch. It's enough to be a nice change of pace for staying in the office.

            Cold isn't too bad. I keep an old ski helmet at my desk and ride with the ear pads on in the winter & off in the summer. Between that, a coat, a balaclava & a good pair of gloves it's not too bad when it's cold -- keeping face & hands covered i

            • Sounds like you don't carry your lunch to work?

              What about your laptop or books/documents...you carry those to/from work too?

              Just sounds like too much a PITA to me, having to bring extra clothes back and forth, rain suits, etc....

              Just having a car to come/go and work and go seems much easier than all that you're having to do...AND, is easier if you have to carry stuff to/from work.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by b0bby ( 201198 )

        Or, why not just be an adult and:

        1. If it isn't too far...WALK.
        2. Buy and ride a damned bicycle.
        3. Buy and drive a fucking car like pretty much everyone else.

        Well, I just tried my first rental scooter just yesterday. I had walked to work, but at lunch it was raining a little bit and they have just brought the rental scooters into my area so I decided to give it a whirl. It was faster than walking, easy, and kind of fun. It's not as good as a bicycle for any distance, and no substitute for a car. I sometimes ride my bike, and sometimes drive my car. But for speeding things up when you have walked somewhere, they seem pretty handy. Running errands at lunch, that k

    • Not the same level of risk for bikes. It takes a lot more effort to go over the steering wheel with a bike than to forward faceplant with a scooter.

      • I'm a scooter rider and I say the opposite is true.

        With a scooter you can get both feet on the ground very quickly, it's much to stay upright than with an awkward metal frame between your legs.

        (yes I've gone over the steering wheel of a bike a couple of times)

        • Damn spellings.

          Should say: "It's much easier to stay upright than..."

        • Putting both feet on the ground from a straight upright position won't slow down your upper body. Lifting it over your steering wheel does slow it down.

          Also if you have a good grip on the bars you can go way over and land in a way where a helmet actually helps. For a straight up faceplant from deceleration on a scooter a helmet doesn't do much. Your brain is protected, your face not so much.

      • Since when did bikes have steering wheels? Last time I looked they had handlebars.

    • Probably a good point, although the same stuff does apply to rental bikes. When I go out riding my bike, I notice that the majority of people don't wear a helmet. But I'm usually riding near Mendocino these days, and there's a lot of tourist activity. I see a lot of people on obviously rented battery-assisted bikes, almost none of whom are wearing helmets. And then there's a few people on obviously privately owned battery-assisted bikes, and most of them are wearing one. I got a concussion as a kid by not w

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        I got a concussion as a kid by not wearing one while riding on the railroad tracks, so I do wear one now...

        You know, I figured you were dropped on your head as a kid. Explains much.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Necron69 ( 35644 )

      I guess it is up to you whether passing on that $30 bike helmet is worth risking a traumatic brain injury. They weight like a pound or so, and can be easily clipped to a backpack.

      - Necron69

  • Seriously thou, I recall reading that when it comes to falling, height actually is a big deal in head injuries vs even speed sometimes. So you might actually get more injured on a stand up scooter than on a bicycle where you're lower.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I recall reading that unbounded hypothetical half-defined scenarios were not useful in making broad, sweeping statements pronouncing universal truths.

      But then, some people like to have the certainty that a bullshit narrative provides them. To each their own I guess, truth or bullshit or head injury either way.

      • When I was studying safety issues with riding motorcycles, one thing the research pointed out was a majority of the G forces the head experienced is from accelerating under gravity to the pavement , not from forward motion. I think the reason behind this is that scraping your face on the pavement is a gentler deceleration than falling to the ground.

        • a majority of the G forces the head experienced is from accelerating under gravity to the pavement , not from forward motion.

          On a bike or scooter though, you get more of the forward motion added to your rush toward the ground if you hang on - bikes/scooters are much lighter weight so "catch" on things in a way motorcycles normally do not (having a lot more mass and beefier shocks).

          In another post I did say I felt like scooter injuries would be more about falling sideways rather than face first the way you

          • Stepping off at 15 miles an hour is a challenge for an athlete and will more likely result in road rash/broken ankles/knees etc. as the ordinary and clumsy person tumbles to the ground. Yes, they will be decelerating slower than a fall off but a step off is not very easy.

            I'm looking forward to more studies on the topic to help understand the mechanisms of accidents and get insight into how to reduce them. One initial report I saw talked about the angle of movement of the steering column. Apparently some

    • So you might actually get more injured on a stand up scooter than on a bicycle where you're lower.

      I have recently been trying the scooters a few times.

      On a bike, if the thing hits an unexpected obstacle escape is not easy since you have your legs all around the bike. That's why usually people go over the handlebars, and often hit their head.

      On a scooter, as long as you are cautious, it's very easily to bail just by stepping to the side - in one rougher street area I rode with one leg hanging out on the air

      • 100% this. Anybody who says different hasn't ridden a scooter.

      • The "11 electric scooter rider deaths in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018" is certainly incredibly unremarkable compared with the corresponding stat for bicycles - "840 cycling fatalities in 2016" - or cars: 37,133 in 2017.

        Of course it's all stupid and meaningless without knowing how many miles were traveled, but I'm just responding to the article in kind.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        All the bike-related injuries I've seen in bike-happy coworkers have been dislocated shoulders, not head injuries. Even untrained, the body has decent reflexes to protect your head when falling. If you're going 30 MPH, however, it's going to end badly one way or another.

      • The main problem is awareness.

        If you are in your mind already in the next business meeting, every obstacle, problem, oversight, mistake will hit you like a hammer.

        There is no problem to ride a bike or a scooter of any kind safely. They are not horses that might get out of control for a reason out of perception of the rider.

    • I recall reading that when it comes to falling, height actually is a big deal in head injuries vs even speed sometimes. So you might actually get more injured on a stand up scooter than on a bicycle where you're lower.

      That would be true for the bicycles where you're lower, but the "proper" height for a diamond frame is to have the top bar right up in your crotch, and the seat is up above that. If one is more likely to be seriously and/or fatally injured on a scooter than a bicycle, I propose that it's because of the nature of the fall. It's relatively difficult to go endo face-first on a bicycle compared to a scooter, somewhat because it has bigger wheels, but mostly because you've got the front wheel farther out in fron

    • Seriously thou, I recall reading that when it comes to falling, height actually is a big deal in head injuries vs even speed sometimes. So you might actually get more injured on a stand up scooter than on a bicycle where you're lower.

      If your bicycle is correctly adjusted then you'll be at the same height.

      When it comes to not falling over; an awkward metal frame between your legs really doesn't help.

      Scooters, OTOH, are very easy to dismount.

    • Seriously thou,

      Forsooth thine English is archaic and mayhap incorrect

  • We'll finally have to rethink cities!

    • Mine's already being re-thunk. They started building cycle lanes all over the city a couple of years ago (much to the anger of car drivers).

      Now these scooters turned up and it's awesome. My city is totally flat, too, so it's ideal terrain.

  • The occurence of injuries was inevitable no matter how safe the scooters are. It's not an RCT experiment; there's no legitimate conclusions to be drawn regarding safety which have more legitimacy than simple common sense.
    • Agreed. There were somewhere around 6000 pedestrian deaths in the US in 2018. Despite the relatively low number of deaths (11, while still individually tragic, is in the statistical noise) the article blames these on the scooters. If a car runs a red-light and hits a person, scooter or pedestrian, it's probably not going to turn out well for the person - but here that's being blamed on the scooter. Pedestrian deaths are often alcohol linked. I suspect the same may be true of scooters. It's probably fair

  • New Lyft Scooters (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @12:41PM (#58745814) Journal
    Watch out for the new Lyft scooters, if you don't lock the scooter, Lyft will continue to charge you, and their interface is buggy so it's easy to mislock.

  • Just let people ride at their own risk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Tuesday June 11, 2019 @12:43PM (#58745822) Homepage

    If someone wants to risk their life by being careless on a scooter, let them.

    I'm tired of useful things like scooters being regulated and possibly removed just because some idiots get hurt on them. Whenever someone rides a scooter instead of driving a car, that's one less car on the road, one less parking space needed. We need to encourage alternate forms of transportation.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by JeffSh ( 71237 )

      yeah this is kinda bullshit.

      38.5 million rentals and 9 deaths as a result, seems pretty insignificant. unfortunate, yes. but significant and worthy of regulation? I don't know.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hadlock ( 143607 )

        Honestly, with numbers like that, you might be less likely to die on a scooter for any reason, than say, die of a heart attack walking down the sidewalk, or have a brain aneurysm burst.

        I've been using scooters at ground zero in SF/Oakland for the last two years and only once have I seen the scooter laying in the sidewalk, and only because it was a paved park path that wasn't completely flat and probably the wind blew it over.

        My suspicion is that scooter articles drive a lot of clicks/traffic

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

        38.5 million rentals and 9 deaths as a result, seems pretty insignificant. unfortunate, yes. but significant and worthy of regulation? I don't know.

        Sure focus upon the deaths while ignoring the injuries, property damage, risks to pedestrians (pesky injuries again), and other socialized costs from having incompetent scooter riders riding wherever they please. Significant probabilities that the riders are not covered by liability insurance (homeowners insurance doesn't cover rental equipment used outside the

        • But what are the costs of injuries due to driving, biking, or walking? If scooters are the alternative to those means of travel, maybe they are actually lowering the "socialized" medical costs to society?

    • I'm tired of useful things like scooters being regulated and possibly removed just because some idiots get hurt on them.

      Another thing to consider here is that if you try to prevent these people from getting hurt, you are thwarting the work of evolution and weakening the gene pool of the entire human race!

    • I'm tired of useful things like scooters being regulated and possibly removed just because some idiots get hurt on them. Whenever someone rides a scooter instead of driving a car, that's one less car on the road, one less parking space needed. We need to encourage alternate forms of transportation.

      There's somewhat of a revolt by a very vocal minority against scooters in the Nashville area right now. They're very popular in downtown Nashville along Broadway, because the tourists love them. Problem is, thos

      • It doesn't depend here. All vehicles (including bicycles and scooters) are to ride on the road with traffic, never on the sidewalk. Sure, that doesn't stop people from riding on the sidewalk, or more incredibly and less frequently against traffic, but they get ticketed when they are caught. A multitude of signs spelling out the state law are posted all over downtown.

        • All vehicles (including bicycles and scooters) are to ride on the road with traffic, never on the sidewalk.

          No.

          In my experience, it truly does depend. There are streets where it's too dangerous to mix scooter and normal traffic, then there are streets where that does make sense. If traffic is really bad and you could either squeeze between parked cars and traffic, or go on a huge wide sidewalk with almost no people - why should you take the more dangerous option?

          If people would just keep the speed down mi

    • If someone wants to risk their life by being careless on a scooter, let them.

      I'm pretty libertarian, but the problem is that when one of these idiots gets injured, their medial costs end up being borne by the rest of society. Insurance can't exactly get a verifiable answer to "do you ride scooters?" when setting their premiums. Just like they can't verify if you actually use the seat belts in your car.

      That said, the number of scooter injuries and deaths is insufficient to judge if scooters are a probl

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. Take comparable transportation for length of travel the same and then compare. And do include that people in cars usually injure others, not themselves when they screw up in these cases.

    • How about the people the scooters hit?

      I have had many near-misses with idiots on electric scooters. I'm in my 30s.
      What about the elderly people that are blindsided at street-corners by morons riding these things on the sidewalks?

      I'm all for letting natural selection do its thing, but these things are a serious risk for everyone else, too-- and not a risk we're taking on willingly.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Oh, that also works with non-motorized scooters. We had a nine-year old girl kill a grandma that way a few years back here. Was ruled an accident. It is however very rare as kids have excellent reflexes compared to adults and they are lighter. Now, full grown adult morons on this things and with motorization and hence much faster, that is something else.

    • That's all good and fine until they hurt other people. Regulation isn't bad. Bad regulation is bad. But it's regulations like e.g. seatbelts which dramatically improve the safety of some activities regardless of the number of idiots involved.

  • Darwin moves in predictable ways.

  • They need to install recharge docks, and make you still pay for the scooter until it's PLUGGED IN and not lying somewhere on the sidewalk.

    • This is an interesting part of their business model. Distributed charging.

      People use their app to go pick up scooters when the apps says they are available. They then charge them at their homes and deliver them to locations specified by the app. And then they get paid.

      I saw someone loading them into a van once and figured they were stealing them (which wouldn't bother me in the least). But a bit of research showed he was probably just going to charge them up.

      It's the gig economy (especially since it doe

      • My brother does this down in Santa Barbara, loads up a truck and charges them, then takes them to places to be used.

        Once some kids took a bunch of them that were charging up.

  • They are all single track vehicles and traveling at the same speed they will cause approximately the same level of damage. They require approximately the same level of situational awareness of traffic and road conditions, they all use counter steering, and they all put more force in the front wheel when braking. Personally I think that any single track vehicle should be licensed, insured, and the driver should be trained to at least the level of the motorcycle safety foundation training program. But no, th

    • pffft, for a couple dozen deaths each year nationwide?

      lighten up Francis, it's a non issue. Maybe we should license hot dogs too since the same number of people will die this year from choking to death on them

    • They require approximately the same level of situational awareness of traffic and road conditions

      Not when you have bicycle lanes everywhere and are going half the speed.

      they all use counter steering

      Nope. To turn a scooter really sharply you have to tilt it the opposite way.

      and they all put more force in the front wheel when braking.

      Nope, they have the brake on the back wheel.

      (nb. many have regenerative braking on the front wheel where the motor is)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        quote>Nope. To turn a scooter really sharply you have to tilt it the opposite way.

        You can turn a stand-up scooter very tightly by leaning into a turn the right way. 90% chance you fly off, 10% chance you magically make a 90 degree turn in the space of 2 feet. Looks unreal when it works.

  • So greatly increased usage of something is leading to more injuries involved with that usage? What were you expecting, fewer scooter injuries as usage increased?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Of course. The world is a scare Place! Scooters _MUST_ be SAFE SPACES! Or countless spineless wimpy morons are going to cry...

  • What if scooter use had quadrupled yet scooter accidents have only doubled? In other words, more scooter accidents does not mean they are not safe unless you have more information. But the idiot that does not understand math doesn't see that and starts pretending this is news.

    But more importantly, it really doesn't matter. What matters is are scooters less safe per mile travelled than bikes. If it is significantly less safe than perhaps some regulation might be required (like helmets, pads, etc.) If sc

  • Less then one a month? I don't mean to sound heartless, but why should I care? (I'm frankly surprised it is not much higher)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is NEW! Hence it must be SCARY! People have DIED!

      In other news, that is probably still more than the deaths from terrorism in the US in the same time and less than lottery winners in the US in the same time. The general population and the press that feeds it, are completely incapable of even very simple and obvious risk evaluations and comparisons.

    • In the same period there were likely 700+ deaths of bicycle riders. (Could not find data for that year so just assuming based on rates from previous years.)
    • Honestly, this is the biggest non-crisis ever. I'm sure the scooters are a PIA for pedestrians who have to dodge riders who act like asshats, but this isn't an epidemic.

  • I think this is outstanding actually. Now we'll see one of three outcomes 1) More people go riding them w/o safety gear and get injured/killed 2) They're legislated out of existence or 3) They do nothing. I opt for 3 because they're becoming a plague in many cities and if they kill off their customers, all the better.

  • Scooter riders need to wear helmets. The United States, in general, has done an exceptionally poor job in protecting pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists from motorists.

    • Scooter riders need to wear helmets. The United States, in general, has done an exceptionally poor job in protecting pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists from motorists.

      It would help, but not as much as you would think. The trouble with the scooters is that when they do hit something, the most common fail mode is for the entire thing to flip forward and the rider to hit the ground face first. Coworker had this happen to him (woman stepped out in front of him though) and was wearing a helmet. Had a broken nose and raccoon eyes for a week. Sold his scooter.

  • On the plus-side, people rediscover the inelastic collision! So this is a great win for Physics education!

    • I really thought people would have learned this lesson, from all of those "Jackass" videos involving guy-rides-in-a-shopping-cart-that-collides-with-a-park-bench. I guess it's time for a refresher course.

  • I'd assume most fatalities on a scooter involve a car. While it is possible that a low speed crash on a scooter could kill someone (and probably has), the sheer number of automobiles out there, combined with their greater mass and speed makes me suspect that they are a factor in the vast majority of fatalities.

    Yet when we talk about traffic deaths, we tend to focus on the vulnerable road user instead of the deadly road user.

  • Just wait until those Swedish fucking pogo sticks start showing up everywhere.
  • If you didn't see this coming, then question your overall level of awareness.

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