Dive Brief:
- The number of injuries incurred by electric scooter riders who were treated in U.S. emergency departments rose 80% from 2023 to 2024 and nearly 300% from 2020 to 2024, according to an August report from ERideHero, a company that tests e-scooters and related products.
- More than 18% of those e-scooter injuries in 2024 involved head injuries, based on data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, which collects data on consumer product-related injuries from the emergency departments of approximately 100 hospitals.
- “Much of this danger is avoidable,” ERideHero says in the report, noting that “it is not currently the norm for e-scooter riders to wear a helmet or take training before riding an e-scooter.”
Dive Insight:
Children 14 and younger incurred nearly 1 in 7 e-scooter injuries in 2024, the report states. Males of all ages account for two-thirds of e-scooter injuries.
Riding while under the influence of drugs or alcohol correlated with greater injuries, and the report shows seasonal increases in injuries during the summer.
“As the technology has been rolled out” for e-scooter rental, the report states “— often in a landgrab scenario as brands tried to conquer the market — safety legislation and user sophistication have lagged behind.”
Reducing the collision speed from 25 kph (15.5 mph) to 15 kph (9.4 mph) can reduce the risk of head injuries to pedestrians by 49%, according to research from the Vehicle Safety Institute at Graz University of Technology, but “riders tend to default to the top available speed,” the ERideHero report says.
