What Is More Important – Observing Cyclists, E-Scooters, Or Both?

Road safety is becoming more complicated. As we transition from roadways travelled by large, fossil-fueled, motor vehicles to battery-powered e-bikes and e-scooters many road jurisdictions are falling behind addressing these new developments.

In the past few years Gorski Consulting has focused attention on gathering observations of cyclists in the vicinity of London, Ontario in the belief that cyclist injuries and deaths are likely to become an increasingly important issue. Only a few years ago the traditional pedal-cycle was the predominant, two-wheel vehicle travelling on, and adjacent, to roadways in London. Even current guidelines contained in recent manuals of the Ontario Traffic Manual assume the predominant existence of pedal-cycles with no mention of e-bikes or e-scooters. Yet the transportation landscape has changed dramatically in the last few years. If someone were to make detailed observations of traffic one would recognize this change.

While Gorski Consulting has observed the large increase in e-bikes, our focus has not been on a similarly large increase in the numbers of e-scooters. It is becoming apparent that such a lack of focus is causing an increasingly dangerous condition to fall under the radar.

The above photo shows some of the concerns with e-scooter safety. While e-scooters are being ridden on urban sidewalks they provide a measure of safety to the riders in areas where high traffic volumes and minimal infrastructure exists to protect riders. However e-scooters are also being ridden at faster speeds than typical pedal-cycles and in many cases the governors that keep their speed within a legal limit are being disabled. And much like many pedal-cyclists, riders of e-scooters fail to wear helmets. Fast moving e-bikes and e-scooters are also now causing greater safety problems to users of sidewalks; a fact that has not become significant until very recently.

Furthermore the smaller wheels of e-scooters, such as the one shown in the photo above, create the potential of loss of control when the surface being ridden contains an irregularity. What many riders do not understand is that the diameter of a wheel influences whether a disturbance in the cycle/scooter will occur. The larger the diameter of a wheel the less likely that the wheel will “fall into” a crevice or will be disturbed by a vertical change in the surface. This is commonly understood when the large wheels of heavy trucks can easily ride over top of a roadway curb whereas the wheel of a smaller passenger car would experience a difficulty. The same applies to the wheels of cycles. But more importantly many e-scooters contain wheels with very small diameters and this becomes an added safety problem when the riders also do not wear helmets. Riders might as well be children if they are not told how they could be injured or killed.

While battery-powered, two-wheeled vehicles are increasingly seen on all roadways there continues to be no safety information provided by all levels of government, police, and medical professions to inform the public of the dangers riders could experience wherever they may ride.