Electric scooters accidents: Analyses of two Swedish accident data sets

Abstract

Since august 2018 electric scooters (e-scooters) are available in selected cities in Sweden, operated by several different operators. There is a growing concern regarding their safety as they grow in popularity. The aim with this study was to investigate injuries associated with e-scooters in Sweden and to identify accident characteristics. In addition, the aim was to observe how different data collection procedures and samples may influence the results. Two complementary data sets were used; insurance data including all reported injuries to Folksam Insurance Group during the period January 2019 to May 2020 and the Swedish Traffic Accident Data Acquisition database (STRADA), the national system for road traffic injury data collection, was used to study accident related to e-scooter use in the Stockholm city area between May and the end of August 2019. Most of the injuries associated with e-scooters occurred in single crashes, but in 13% of the accidents another road user was injured, either due to interactions with e-scooters or due to a parked e-scooter being a hazard. In both data sets more than half of the accidents occurred during weekends. In total 46% of all who had visited an emergency department the accident occurred during night-time (10 pm to 6 am). The overall large proportion of injuries to the head and face indicates the need for actions aimed to increase helmet use among e-scooter riders. Local authorities should take a wider responsibility since one third of all accidents primarily occurred due to lack of maintenance or that the rider hit a curb stone. In comparison to hospital data, insurance claims include riders with all types of injuries irrespectively what type of healthcare the rider was seeking. Hence, to better understand the consequences and to make the right decisions regarding countermeasures aimed to improve the safety of e-scooter riding, data from different data source are needed.