60 injuries reported in e-scooter pilot
In the few weeks since Calgary’s pilot program testing out electric-scooter rentals hit the city, dozens of people have hopped aboard, scooting away on the vehicles only to end their trip at the hospital.
Since Calgary launched its electric scooter pilot project this month, around 30,000 unique users have tried them out. In fact, last Friday was the busiest day yet, according to Nathan Carswell, the manager of the city’s shared mobility program, seeing about 10,000 users.
But since the pilot started, Calgary’s hospitals have seen at least 60 patients ushered in reporting injuries related to scooter use. Dr. Eddy Lang, a Calgary emergency room doctor, said a third of those injuries have resulted in fractures, and 10 per cent were facial or head trauma injuries.
Lang said he’s in charge of a project looking at these injuries, partnering with injury prevention researchers and the city. He anticipates having enough data for a full report in the late fall or early December.
“Sixty people coming to the hospital in two weeks who wouldn’t otherwise come to the hospital is a big problem,” Lang said. “What we may find is this is just an early blip and things will settle down in time, but it’s certainly a significant health issue if we think it’s resulted in this many visits so far.”
But Lang said he hopes that as people become more used to riding e-scooters, and as their safe use is promoted more heavily by the scooter companies or the city, more people will think to use a helmet, or even wrist and elbow pads.
According to Carswell, these injuries are part of a learning curve as people in the city get used to e-scooters, and that the injury numbers will likely drop as the novelty wears off.
Unlike some other cities, Calgary allows e-scooters on the sidewalk. But Carswell said if sidewalk riding leads to more injuries, the city could respond by issuing harsher fines, limiting their speed, or creating more permanent infrastructure for scooter use.