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Idaho E-Scooter Injuries And Prevention Methods

Katherine Jones/ Idaho Statesman

This weekend, Boise police say a pickup truck collided with two passengers on a scooter, leaving one dead and one injured.

 

Dr. Beth Ebel leads the safe and active transport division at Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center in Seattle. She says e-scooter related injuries could be decreased with better data collection, city ordinances and individual awareness. 

She says wearing a helmet is the most important thing a person can do to prevent serious, physical trauma.

“If you break your arm and you show up at the trauma center, we will fix your arm. If you break your leg,  we will fix your leg," says Ebel. "But really, we can’t do very much about brain injury once it's occured."

Ebel says personal safety is just one factor of a complex issue. 

“Things that seem, on the face of it, to be something we can blame on an individual, there’s frankly a lot of things our cities can and should think about," says Ebel.

Ebel says operators could improve things like scooter brakes and being more transparent about their data. She says cities can make laws to improve traffic flow of scooters. 

In July, Boise City Council passed ordinances that limited scooter speeds and worked to create methods of identifying reckless driving and vandalism. As this technology evolves and grows, cities will have to adapt.

 

For more local news, follow the KBSX newsroom on Twitter @KBSX915

 

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