They are easily accessible everywhere in big cities: electric scooters are practical and easy to use. But frankly not without risk… The National Academy of Medicine has just published a report about this new means of urban micro-mobility that leads to a lot of head injuries and broken bones.
When you decide to opt for an electric scooter for a last-minute trip because the metro is no longer running, you rarely have a helmet on hand to protect your head: in nine cases out of ten more precisely. And in fact, there are many accidents. “The cephalic extremity is more often affected in electric scooter accidents than in bicycle accidents where the fall occurs laterally”, notes the Academy of Medicine, which sees it as a “public health issue”.
The head takes all the hits
She deplores regulations that were too late and “poorly observed by users, added to a often ill-suited environment and unclear constraints imposed on manufacturers.”
The ANM has identified dental avulsions and dislocations, which it describes as “frequent”. She underlines that the nose, the zygoma, the orbit, the maxilla or the condylar region undergo fractures. “These traumas of the cephalic extremity can be responsible for lasting aesthetic and functional sequelae.“, she notes.
What explains it? These are not so much accidents with other road users as the behavior of the person riding the scooter: in 50% of cases the person is alcoholic or under the effect of an active substance. In addition, we lack practice of these machines, and we drive them with too few precautions (one-handed for example), or using our mobile phone. In short, we miss an obstacle, we slip and we get hurt. In conclusion, the ANM would like the helmet to be compulsory. And the concentration, with.
Source: National Academy of Medicine, December 2022.
