 While only limited comparisons of the risk for e-scooter riders and cyclists have been carried out, the data that are available suggest that the injury risk for escooter riders is higher than the injury risk for cyclists.

• o Studies that compared injury or death rates for e-scooter riders and bicycle riders found the risk associated with e-scooters was, depending on the study, 1.5 to 13 times higher than the risk associated with cycling.
• o The wide variation in relative risk from study to study suggests that there is a level of uncertainty in these risk estimates.

 E-scooter injuries typically involved riders falling off scooters or hitting fixed objects; in most studies, a relatively small percentage of e-scooter injuries involved collisions with motor vehicles.

• o Santa Monica's data showed a higher proportion of collisions involving motor vehicles than other studies (47% versus 10 to 20% for other studies). This difference may be caused by differences in data sources (police collision reports for Santa Monica versus emergency department records and patient interviews for the other studies).

 Over the past decade, facial and head injuries due to motorized scooters have tripled.

Details on these studies are provided in Appendix 1.

Upcoming Review

Public Health Ontario is currently conducting an evidence review on e-scooter injuries. The results of this review are expected to be released in the coming months.

Risk Analysis:

Risks were identified in report S 236/2019. The following additional risks have been identified:

•  Safety risk: the proposed amendments to Traffic By-law 9148 provided in report S 236/2019 included the requirement for all riders to wear helmets, regardless of age. Relaxing this requirement to require helmets only up to age 18 would create an additional safety risk to scooter riders, primarily due to the increased potential for head injuries.
•  Operational risk: during consultations for report S 236/2019, Windsor Police Service indicated that requiring helmets for all ages will allow easier enforcement of helmet requirements, since determination of the rider's age would not be required. If helmets were to only be required for riders over 18, then officers would need to determine whether the rider is over or under 18 to issue a citation. Further to this, Windsor Police Service provided the additional comment: