I’ve been reading a whole lot lately about how eScooter injuries are becoming more constant in hospital rooms. I recently read an article that discussed how the town of San Antonio, TX has seen a surge of accidents where 92% percentage of the people involved in accidents were the rides themselves, and only 4% of those people were wearing helmets. This, in my eyes, is where the problem starts and we’ll revisit this a little later.
While we’re covering basics, most towns that are allowing scooter rides to cruise through the streets are only allowing them to do so at 15mph on rented scooters that are electronically governed. I think this is pretty fair, considering that if you’re going any faster on a vehicle like an eScooter, it’s probably not very safe even on a personal level, regardless of how many great features are available on what you’re riding. Most communities are allowing eScooter riders to only ride in bike lanes, and less and less on sidewalks. This is great, because it creates a dividing line between those who ride and those who walk, and I think it benefits everyone in the safety column.
So what are we missing?
We’re missing something big though. We’re taking people that normally use cars for transportation- vehicles are built with safety in mind- Seat belts, air bags, crumple zones in the frames, etc. They’re not thinking about safety when they’re in a car, and when they look at an eScooter (which many view as a toy), they’re not considering safety as a rider that is much more exposed than if they were in a car. If we’re trying to move people from commuting in their cars to commuting on their eScooter, we should also be talking about safety on the road and wearing a helmet is the first thing we should be talking about. Including in the statistics at the top of the page is another sthat I haven’t mentioned yet: 40% of those eScooter riders that have been injured while on an eScooter have head injuries.
Did you know...
That we made a list of a variety of helmets so you can find one suitable for your riding style? Find out how you can choose the best helmet for your next eScooter outing.
The next step
If we want this industry to expand and influence this fun hobby and form of green transport (and others beyond it), we have to promote a culture of safety to get the rest of the public to be quicker to adopt these things we love! The hardest thing we have to conquer is convincing those that are renting scooters from the popular companies to wear helmets and ride in a safe fashion, too.
Want to be a safer rider?
Check out this selection of helmets for use when you're riding. The selected helmets are fine to use on many other forms of transportation like bikes, roller blades, and skateboards. Please know that if you're looking for a helmet that will work on faster modes of transportation (like a motorcycle), you'll want to look at helmets that are made for this type of use, specifically.
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