More than 10% of e-scooter riders get into an accident, new survey reveals

Of the 5,189 respondents who had used scooters, 11% reported experiencing an injury, according to The Seattle Department of Transportation’s (SDOT) findings from the first year of the e-scooter pilot program.

“That’s 570 reported injuries just from those who received the survey and chose to respond. This excludes the police report data and hospital data,” Seattle City Councilmember Alex Pedersen wrote in his blog. “I shared the concerns expressed by experts from Harborview’s Injury Prevention and Research Center about not only safety, but also about the lack of data from other jurisdictions who had reported problems with scooters.”

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Councilmember Alex Pedersen was the lone vote against the placement of thousands of e-scooters on Seattle’s sidewalks back in September 2020.

There was an average of 48 injuries a month related to the e-scooter program just from the respondents alone.

The Harborview Prevention and Research Center studied the effects e-scooters have on public safety, including the seriousness of injuries as a result of accidents.

“A lot of these injuries are pretty serious: they get concussed, have brain injuries that last for a number of months,” said Dr. Fred Rivara, an injury prevention expert at Harborview Medical Center.

“At the same time, I’m hopeful scooters — if properly regulated for safety — can be successful by serving a subset of Seattleites as a viable and clean “first-last mile” transportation solution without taxpayer subsidies,” wrote Pedersen.

The SDOT survey also revealed nearly 70% of riders who responded to the study are not following at least one of the city’s main rules for the scooters.

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