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Abstract
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This issue of the journal we publish a report analysing electric scooter injuries in Brisbane; another paper on injuries in Dunedin is in the production pipeline and will be published soon. Emergency physicians know better than most, that life carries risk. So why have emergency physicians in Brisbane and Dunedin taken the time to write about this issue?
Brisbane was the first Australian city to introduce an e‐scooter share hire scheme; first with Lime Scooter in November 2018 and more recently with Neuron; with other cities following suit. In Brisbane, this rollout has had no formal evaluation of public amenity and safety. There was no consultative process canvassing opinion about the implementation of a share‐hire ‘personal mobility device’ (PMD) scheme. Did commercial interests override formal health and safety analysis?
E‐scooters are not new, and before Lime's launch in Brisbane, some citizens were riding privately owned vehicles in public spaces. The recent regulatory relaxations have resulted in a steep increase in the number of both experienced and novice e‐scooter users in Brisbane's transport infrastructure.
E‐scooters are considered consumer products and captured under Australian consumer law. However, unlike vehicles which must adhere to the Australian Design Rules, there are currently no applicable mandatory product supply standards, and use of them is not captured in existing national road rules. Therefore, with the implementation of hire schemes, post‐fix exemptions for PMDs are still evolving and vary state to state, meaning that even for Australians, permissible e‐scooter use varies between cities. Nearly a year after Lime launched in Brisbane, the National Transport Commission (NTC) has released their ‘Barriers to the Safe Use of Personal Mobility Devices’ citing the following ...
Keywords: Powered Standing Scooter
Language: en |