The scooter controversies

I hadn't been into the Brisbane CBD for a while, so I didn't realise until I was near there yesterday that Lime electric scooters had started appearing.  I first noticed them (or was it another app based sharing service, I forget?) actually being used  in Singapore during my recent holiday.

I think they look pretty cool, really, although I can understand how they could be a nuisance in the hands of idiots too.  I presume you have to use them with a helmet here, as I noticed helmets attached to them in Brisbane.

Their safety has been a hot issue.   Mother Jones had an article noting a study about the injuries incurred in using them in Los Angeles, and its tweet about it copped a lot of criticism for seemingly ignoring the injuries caused by cars.  As to the number of injuries, here's a key part:

Digging through records from two Los Angeles-area emergency rooms, the researchers found 249 patients with injuries serious enough to warrant a trip to the ER. In comparison, they found 195 bicyclists with injuries and 181 pedestrians with similar injuries during the same period.

But that alone is potentially misleading:  surely the rate of injuries is more significant?  There are (I would guess) a lot more bicycle riders in LA than scooter riders, and doing a lot more distance too.  

I also see that even in liberal California, there is a move away from legislating helmet use for bicycles and now scooters:

Only 10 of the people brought to the ER were wearing head protection. During three observation sessions, the study’s authors documented that 94 percent of the riders they saw didn’t use a helmet, and 26 percent rode on the sidewalk. Bird and Lime encourage their users to wear helmets, offering to ship free ones upon request. But it’s unclear how many riders follow safety guidelines, like wearing protective gear and staying off the sidewalk to avoid pedestrians.

As of January 1, adult scooter riders are no longer required to wear a helmet in California. Bird lobbied for the legislation, arguing that it would create parity with cyclists, who may ride helmet-free. The company’s chief legal officer told the Sacramento Bee that the goal was to help people “more easily embrace sustainable shared mobility options.” Lerer, who filed a class-action suit against Bird and Lime for negligence, calls removing the helmet requirement a “huge mistake.” She notes the suddenness and severity of the injuries she began seeing as soon as the scooters were introduced. “So many of the people I’ve spoken to have serious brain injuries,” she says.

Surely the US must provide a lot of evidence for researchers about the effects of legislating for things like helmet use?   Because it seems that their obsession with liberty means lots of places keep repealing things which other countries (or at least Australia) think are well worth keeping on public health grounds.  Only a week or so ago, I saw a Reddit post about the motor cyclist death rate increase in Florida when it repealed compulsory helmet use in 2000.   (No surprise - the death rate went up substantially.)   It appears that other American states softened helmet laws in the same period.  From a 2004 study:

Between 1997 and 2001, nationwide motorcycle rider fatalities increased by 50% while motorcycle registrations increased by 31%.1,2 The rise in death rates may be related to the concurrent weakening of motorcycle helmet laws in Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Florida. In comparing rates the year before (1996) and the year after (1998) the helmet law change, Preusser et al.3 found a 21% increase in motorcyclist deaths in Arkansas and a 30% increase in Texas. This analysis tries to determine the effect of weakening Florida’s motorcycle helmet law.

Remember a post I wrote recently about the way the comparative American death toll from traffic accidents had started going up over the last few decades, and the reason given was that other countries followed evidence-based policies shown to have reduced fatalities?   Seems they may have the same problem when it comes to helmets. 

Anyway, this post was partly inspired by watching this pretty interesting video about how Tel Aviv has embraced electric scooters, partly because they don't have public transport on the Sabbath (it seems Shabbat is the preferred word now?)   I thought it pretty interesting: