What Injuries and Circumstances are Associated with Electric Scooter Collisions? A Research Update
January 31st 2022
In recent years, electric/electronic or “e-scooters”, have grown in popularity. Companies like Bird, Lime, Lyft, and Uber have seen their ridership soar over the last few years. To illustrate this point, shared e-scooters logged 86 million trips in the U.S. in 2019 [1]. However, many North American and global cities have restricted or prohibited the use of e-scooters on public streets. These cities, including Chicago, Copenhagen, and New York City, have each restricted the use of shared e-scooters in their downtowns, while Amsterdam, Boston, Edinburgh, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Sydney, and Toronto, all prohibit the use of e-scooters [2].
Due to the rising popularity of e-scooters, coupled with concerns for both public and rider safety, researchers have begun to assess the injuries associated with e-scooter use. A scoping review published in 2021 reported that the head, upper extremities, and lower extremities are especially vulnerable in e-scooter falls and collisions. Injuries to the chest and abdomen appear to be less common [3]. Injury severity was inconsistently reported in the peer-reviewed studies and literature records included in the review. Low rates of helmet use among e-scooter users were noted in several of the studies [3]. Most e-scooter injuries involved a single user, with falls being the most common mechanism of injury [3].
Research conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) also showed that e-scooter riders suffered injuries more frequently per mile traveled compared to bicyclists. However, bicyclists were three times as likely compared to e-scooter riders to be hit by motor vehicles. E-scooter riders were twice as likely compared to bicyclists to get injured because of a pothole or crack in the pavement, or infrastructure such as a curb or post [1,4].
The authors also made some recommendations for future research, including the use of standard metrics for injury distribution and severity, and details of the injury circumstance such as time of day, road infrastructure, involvement of other road users and contributory factors which need to be systematically collected [3].
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[1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/most-e-scooter-rider-injuries-happen-on-sidewalk-study-finds
[3] Toofany, M., Mohsenian, S., Shum, L. K., Chan, H., & Brubacher, J. R. (2021). Injury patterns and circumstances associated with electric scooter collisions: a scoping review. Injury Prevention: Journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 27(5), 490–499. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2020-044085
[4] https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf/55/5