The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced that it will be conducting its first study of the health risks of electric scooters. The announcement follows closely on the heels of growing nationwide worry about electric scooter accidents and the injuries they have caused.
The CDC will send three specialists to Austin, Texas to study electric scooter crashes. The study was prompted after Austin city officials asked for help in investigating the injuries. Austin will use the information gathered to form a new set of rules that will apply to electric scooters, including where they can be ridden and at what speed. The city’s preliminary scooter rules were established in November 2018. In February 2019, the city will propose a safe-riding ordinance, just before Austin’s SXSW festival, which is expected to bring 70,000 visitors to Austin.
According to Austin officials, the CDC specialists will examine 37 scooter-related emergency calls and 68 injuries reported at Austin hospitals in a 60-day period, between September 5th, 2018 and November 4th, 2018. The epidemiologists will give questionnaires to injury victims, looking for patterns pertaining to injury severity and the factors involved in crashes.
Applying the Data to Improve Safety
Hopefully, the information gained from the CDC’s study will benefit all cities that are grappling with whether to allow electric scooters on their streets. At this time, numerous cities across the country are relying mostly on guesswork to try to regulate electric scooter use. Resistance from ridesharing electric scooter companies, like Bird and Lime, has also hindered regulatory and safety progress.
At McGee, Lerer & Associates, our Santa Monica personal injury attorneys have serious concerns about the safety of electric scooters and the severity of the injuries they cause to riders and pedestrians alike. We have heard numerous electric scooter accident stories from people who have been seriously injured by the popular mobility devices. It is our hope that new regulations and continued litigation against liable parties, like electric scooter manufacturers, will help reduce electric scooter accidents in our city and beyond.
If you are hurt in an electric scooter accident, please do not hesitate to contact our team. We have deliberately focused much of our practice recently on electric scooter accident cases, earning us a reputation as legal leaders for such lawsuits and national attention from major newsgroups, including The Washington Post and CNN. Call us at (310) 692-9582 today to learn more about our services and your rights after an electric scooter accident causes you to suffer a serious injury.