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Abstract
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Electric scooter or e-scooter use is a rapidly growing form of urban transportation, with numerous cities worldwide permitting ride-sharing fleets to operate since their introduction to Southern California in 2017. E-scooters are a relatively inexpensive and enjoyable mode of micro-mobility and are often advertised as a beneficial alterative to automobile use. However, a growing body of international studies reports serious injuries for riders who crash while riding e-scooters [1].
With their report in this issue of CJEM, VandenBerg and colleagues describe characteristics of injuries related to e-scooter use in Calgary [2]. This is the first Canadian study to report e-scooter injury rates and crash risk factors. The authors identified injured patients by searching medical records using variants of the search term "scooter" and characterized a variety of documented crash factors. A total of 1272 ED/urgent care patient visits were identified over the summers of 2019 and 2020, a large sample size compared to many other published e-scooter injury studies [1]. E-scooter injuries represented 15% of transportation-related injuries in Calgary emergency departments, with an incident rate per ride of 1 injury requiring an emergency department visit for every 1400 e-scooter trips. Emergency department visit rate per ride is not frequently described in other studies, making it difficult to compare the Calgary injury rate to other municipalities.
The results of VandenBerg's study can be added to the international effort to understand risks associated with e-scooter use and identify opportunities to enhance rider safety. A number of contributing factors to e-scooter injuries reported by the authors can be categorized into a safety matrix of rider risky behaviors (e.g., not wearing a helmet, riding while intoxicated), environmental contributors (e.g., potholes, curbs, night riding, streets, bicycle paths), and e-scooter design issues (e.g., rear wheel bolt). Not wearing a helmet and alcohol impairment are well-known e-scooter crash contributors [1]. The authors found that an ethanol level was obtained in 7% of e-scooter-related visits transported by EMS, and of these, 60% demonstrated a level that would be expected to cause impairment [2]. These results likely underestimate the contribution of alcohol and other legal and illicit substances that contribute to rider crashes. Riding while impaired may affect...
Keywords: Ethanol impaired driving
Language: en |