Micromobility – bicycles, E-bikes, E-scooters, and hoverboards – has experienced immense growth in recent years, and we just published a paper in the first look section of AJPH exploring how this growth parallels the rise in electric micromobility injuries and what this means for public health. While the definition of micromobility is evolving, in general it refers to any small, low-speed, human- or electric-powered transportation device. In our paper we show the rate of e-bike injuries increased fourfold between 2019 and 2022, while powered scooter injuries nearly doubled. Through our findings, we highlight the need to improve micromobility injury surveillance and strategies for cities to improve user’s safety so that micromobility can be a safe, sustainable, and healthy option for transportation.

We used the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) dataset to compare patterns and trends for 1,933,296 estimated injuries associated with e-bikes, bicycles, hoverboards, and powered scooters. Among key findings, we found that powered scooter injuries exhibited the highest prevalence of alcohol use, followed by e-bike injuries. We also found that when helmet use was reported, in about 20% of patient narratives, injured bicycle and e-bike users were more likely to use helmets than injured powered scooter or hoverboard users. The lowest proportion of helmet use was observed among hoverboard injuries, and these injuries were also more likely to be diagnosed as concussions compared with other modes. As we note in our previous paper published on alcohol and bicyclist injuries, complete and accurate data for helmet use, substance use, other risk factors, and coding of micromobility devices remains a major limitation among national public-use datasets such as NEISS. 

In summary, we argue that the surge in electric micromobility injuries might be explained by the lack of access, education, and regulation for protective equipment, as shared micromobility systems, such as NYC’s Citi Bike program, are not required to provide helmets to users. In addition, legislation is lacking on where micromobility devices can be ridden and legislation forbidding, or otherwise regulating, the riding of these devices while under the influence of alcohol or other recreational drugs is also lacking.  Such legislation is expected to lower the risks to micromobility users. However, these types of laws have historically been difficult to pass, and so improving active transportation infrastructure near high-usage locations such as downtown areas might offer cities an alternative, and quicker to implement, strategy for making streets safer for micromobility users.  To support urban design for safe micromobility usage, we are planning research to identify built environment features that are associated with lower risk for injuries among micromobility riders.