E-scooters are sending dozens of people to emergency rooms

E-scooters are sending dozens of people to emergency rooms — and the companies appear to have a double standard when it comes to safety

• Helmets are required by most startups to ride their electric scooters. Still, emergency rooms are being flooded with injured riders.
• On Instagram, startups Lime and Bird don’t appear to be practicing what they preach when it comes to safety, despite commitments to give out free helmets.
• Bird was a vocal supporter of a new California law which will nix the helmet requirement for scooter riders on January 1.

Gruesome injuries from riding e-scooters are popping up left and right across the country.

In Austin alone, one emergency room is seeing 10 injuries per day from scooters, the hospital’s ER director told CNET. The site estimates injury rates could be in the thousands, with examples of broken arms, major head injuries, and extensive bruising – with examples from doctors in San Francisco and Denver as well.

Safety is the top priority of every scooter company, their websites and promotional materials are quick to point out. The user agreements of Lime and Bird, for example, even specifically mention the helmet requirement and have decals on the scooters remind riders.

But while Lime was busy distributing 250,000 helmets as part of its “respect the ride” campaign, its marketing efforts were telling a very different story. On Instagram, photos of helmets are interspersed with photos of riding in direct contradiction of the pledge, most notably without helmets.

Lime isn’t the only company. Bird, whose scooters do say on the deck that a helmet is required, hasn’t shown a rider with a helmet on its Instagram page since Nov. 6 – and has posted more than a dozen photos since. (Bird has also distributed about 50,000 helmets, it told CNET)