How Safe Are E-Scooters In Tampa? – Here’s What We Know So Far
By Space Coast Daily // January 1, 2020
Tampa’s e-scooter program is now in its eighth month and we still don’t have an exhaustive study on accidents in the city.
There is, however, a lot of new data that could help leaders gauge the safety and popularity of these new devices.
In terms of e-scooter accidents, we now know at least 43 patients with e-scooter-related injuries were treated at Tampa General Hospital between May and June of 2019. Since that time, doctors say they’ve seen more e-scooter injury cases, but they didn’t release any precise figures.
To help gain a better understanding of e-scooter safety, Tampa’s City Council said it will work with organizations like Tampa General Hospital when compiling crash data. Members of the Tampa Police Department have also considered adding “e-scooter crashes” in their reports to keep more accurate tabs on these devices.
In addition to police reports and ER data, Tampa councilmembers will investigate safety stats compiled by the four participating e-scooter companies.
The four companies participating in Tampa’s e-scooter pilot program are as follows:
- Lime
- Bird
- Spin
- JUMP
Although we don’t know much about e-scooter safety in Tampa, new stats suggest these devices are quite popular in the area. The City of Tampa recently revealed there were over 732,500 e-scooter rides between May and the end of November in 2019. That translates to over 856,000 total miles “scooted” and approximately 4,000 e-scooter trips per day.
Analysts also pointed out there were just over 1,500 confirmed e-scooter violations in Tampa between September and November. Most often these offenses were related to riding e-scooters in non-approved sections of the city.
Interestingly, not all e-scooter companies had the same rate of violations. Indeed, San Francisco-based Spin had significantly fewer e-scooter incidents compared with the other three companies.
To participate in Tampa’s e-scooter program, companies are supposed to install GPS technology in their e-scooters that automatically turn them off when they enter certain areas.
The three major areas Tampa doesn’t want e-scooters include:
- Riverwalk
- 7th Avenue
- Bayshore Boulevard
Hopefully, the City of Tampa will have a clearer understanding of e-scooter accidents in May of 2020 when the pilot program is slated to end.
At this time, it’s unknown whether the city will continue with another pilot program or approve any of the e-scooter vendors to operate indefinitely.
For more information, be sure to click on this link to the City of Tampa’s official Shared E-Scooter Pilot Program webpage. You could also read more about e-scooter safety data on this post put together by Hancock Injury Attorneys.
