Zippy and compact, electric kick scooters, or e-scooters, convey a childlike whimsicality. They appeal to people in search of a fun, efficient mode of transportation that’s faster than walking or taking the bus, and less work than biking or driving.
And urban scooter rental services have bright, big-tent branding that casts a wide net: anyone, and maybe everyone, should ride them, they seem to say.
In Vancouver, Lime scooters are the cheeky transportation mode of choice for a group of anonymous content creators who call themselves the Lime Scoot Boyz .
The Lime Scoot Boyz illustrate the silliness of Limes with outsize stunts. They jump off the steps under the Granville Bridge, grind on seawall infrastructure near the Vancouver Convention Centre and ride near the offramp of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.
The Boyz can clear whole staircases on their e-scooters. But part of their appeal is how fantastical that is. They ride their Limes with a background in skateboarding, a willingness to wipe out and an indefatigable zest for life — all things most of us lack.
E-scooters are quiet, approachable and sold as eco-friendly. They might seem harmless. But data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, or CIHI, shows the number of scooter-related injury hospitalizations has gone up alongside their rise in popularity. That raises questions about whether more should be done to enforce or reform e-scooter rules for riders, and what the long-term impacts of a four-year B.C. pilot project on e-scooter use will be.
E-scooter hospitalizations are up across Canada
CIHI data from the reporting years 2022 to 2023 shows 810 scooter injury hospitalizations across Canada. Those years show 151 total injuries in B.C. and 221 in Alberta.
In 2023-24, the most recent reporting period available, the total number of scooter injury hospitalizations in Canada went up to 992, with 182 scooter-related hospitalizations in B.C. and 234 in Alberta.
According to a 2024 technical report on micromobility safety by the International Transport Forum, e-scooter crashes “disproportionately lead to head and facial injuries, particularly in the lower face region, compared to crashes involving conventional or electric bikes.”
Head injuries are significant, the report notes; they may involve serious, lasting trauma alongside neurological complications. “They are unlike other injury types and warrant special consideration.”
Unlike standard bicycles, e-scooters can reach speeds that are “too high for young riders to handle safely,” according to two members of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s injury prevention committee who warned of the dangers of e-scooters and e-bikes back in 2024.
E-scooters are meant to appeal to a general-interest ridership, filling a gap between cycling and skateboarding. They’re less labour intensive than riding a bike but, in theory, don’t require the specialized skills needed to skateboard.
Comparing countrywide e-scooter injury numbers to skateboarding injuries, however, calls that into question. In the 2023-24 reporting period, CIHI counted almost three times as many e-scooter-related hospitalizations as those caused by skateboarding accidents, even though skateboards have been around for much longer than e-scooters.
In that reporting period, there were 992 total e-scooter injury hospitalizations across Canada and just 360 skateboarding injuries.
How we got here
In 2021, B.C. started a pilot project to test electric scooter use on public roads, which contributed to a boom in scooter sharing systems including Lime’s partnership with the City of Vancouver.
The province followed that up with another pilot in 2024, which is now in 36 communities across B.C. It runs until 2028.
The e-scooter pilot lays out safety rules for riders: among other stipulations, they must wear a helmet; they must be 16 or older to ride; they must not carry other passengers; they must ride single file, not beside another person; and they can’t ride while intoxicated or while distracted with a cellphone.
And here is where policy cleaves from humanity.
Anyone who lives in an area dense with e-scooter riders knows the rules are often tossed in the gutter like the many bright-green Lime rental helmets lying abandoned near empty scooter docks.
In my neighbourhood in Vancouver, it’s common to see people riding without helmets or doubling on an e-scooter, the person in the back tightly hugging the one in front.
At night on the weekend, we regularly see large, boisterous groups riding in formation past our apartment, carving wide, fast loops down the streets after leaving a park hang, restaurant or living room for a second location somewhere else. They laugh as they knock into each other in pileups at red lights.
Parents sometimes travel with young kids on e-scooters, their little faces at the same level as the handlebars at the helm.
It would be cute if it wasn’t so dangerous. In an interview with journalist Caitlin Walsh Mille…
Read the full article at The Tyee →
CA