More and more people are being hurt in crashes with e-scooters, official figures show.
In 2020, just one person in the North East was injured in collisions involving e-scooters - a figure which rose to 17 last year. Most of the crashes were in the Northumbria Police area - one in 2020 rising to 16 in 2021 (the other crash in 2021 was in Cleveland).
It is illegal to use a privately owned e-scooter on public roads, as well as on pavements or in cycle lanes. The only exception to this is using rental e-scooters as part of Government-run trials of e-scooters, which are currently taking place in around 30 areas.
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E-scooters in these trials are limited to 15.5 miles per hour, though some may have restrictions limiting them further. Users must have a full or provisional licence, and it’s recommended they wear a cycle helmet.
In the North East, there are trials in Newcastle and Sunderland, as well as trials in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough. There are no trials in Durham.
Currently information on how many collisions involve rental e-scooters or private scooters is inconsistent - information is usually recorded in a free text field on the accident report, and not all officers add the information - for the North East police forces, no information is recorded.
Based on national figures, most of those injured are likely to have been the person using the e-scooter. Across Britain, there were 1,280 collisions involving e-scooters, compared to 460 in 2020.
Those collisions involved 1,359 casualties, compared to 484 in 2020. Last year, 309 collisions involved only one e-scooter, and no other vehicles, compared to 83 in 2020.
Of all casualties in collisions involving e-scooters, 1,034 were e-scooter users, compared to 384 in 2020. Among others injured were 223 pedestrians, 64 cyclists, 14 motorcyclists and 17 people in cars.
Across Britain, there were nine people killed in collisions involving e-scooters (all of whom were e-scooter riders) compared to one in 2020. The Department of Transport (DfT), which puts together the data, says its best estimate, after adjusting for changes in reporting by police, is that there were also 390 people seriously injured and 960 slightly injured in 2021, compared to 129 and 354 respectively in 2020.
Of those slightly injured in the collisions, common injuries include slight cuts, bruising, and sprains. More serious injuries include head injuries or broken arms and legs - three people sustained a broken neck or back and three people had internal injuries last year.
E-scooter users who were injured were much more likely to be men - around three-quarters of casualties, where gender was recorded. They were most likely to be aged between 10 and 19, followed by those aged 20 to 29.
Given the age profile of users involved in crashes, it may not be surprising that collisions peak around school run times, at 8am and 4pm. There’s an upward trend starting at 6am and ending at 4pm with a dip at 10am, followed by a downward trend from 4pm to 10pm.
The age range of people injured in collisions, other than e-scooter users themselves, was more broad, with similar numbers in each age band from zero to nine through to 70 plus.
The data, from the DfT, is provisional, so may change as the police finish updating their figures. However, even the updated figures are likely to be an underestimate of the number of collisions and injuries.
“E-scooters” are not one of the designated vehicle types collected in a reportable accident, and as such they would be classed as “other vehicle” and can only be identified using a free text field. Guidance to police encourages them to identify e-scooters as such, rather than recording more general descriptions like “scooter”.
As well as this, the DfT said a considerable percentage of non-fatal casualties are not reported to the police. Non-fatal casualties for e-scooter users are amongst the most likely to be underreported in road casualty data since they have no obligation to inform the police of collisions.
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