As per a recent study, University of California revealed the first-ever study report on the health impact of e-scooters and how the device sends riders and non-riders to emergency rooms.

As per the Journal of the American Medical Association, research was conducted and it was found that of all the users who went to L.A. area emergency rooms during last one-year with electric scooter-related injuries, was found that only 4.4 percent of the users were using head gears and a staggering 8.4 percent weren’t even riding the scooters themselves.

Since there have been thousands of riders now using these scooters, it is very important to understand their impact on public health.

The recent research has revealed that many bicycle injuries and pedestrian injuries have sent people to the two emergency rooms over the same period and found around 190 plus biking visits and 180 plus for walkers which is much less when compared to 240 plus ER visits associated with scooters.

The scooters have a maximum speed of up to 15 miles per hour, and the company advised riders to have a helmet and be over 18 years of age. But this advice goes ignored.
In most of the cases, it was found that helmet use is rare: They observed an e-scooter rider moving around Los Angeles for seven hours in the month of Sep’18 and found that 90 percent of the 190 riders were without a helmet.

Paul Steely White who is the safety policy director for e-scooter start-up Bird claimed that the study would fail to put e-scooter injuries into context as they usually relate to the high number of injuries and deaths caused by two-wheelers and automobiles.

Currently, the company is looking forward to work on the report for a result driven approach.

Another two-wheeler company, Lime claimed that safety is the number one priority for them and the continued government initiatives in protected bike lanes and paths are important to prevent accidents.

Roughly 30 percent of the people with scooter injuries are taken by ambulance to the two emergency rooms.

Falls from moving vehicles are the prime reason for the vast majority of the injuries which is around 80 percent. Next comes collision with an object which accounts almost 11 percent of injuries. Thirdly, getting struck by a moving vehicle comes around 9 percent.

Hurts for the non-riders arises from cases like tripping on a discarded scooter and people hit by someone riding a scooter.

Head injuries are most common, resulting in 40 percent, followed by fractures at 32 percent and cuts, bruises or sprains at 28 percent.

Standing electric scooters would have an impact on public health, taking into consideration popularity, low cost and easy accessibility.