When e-scooters were first introduced in Melbourne in February 2022, I eagerly took on the challenge of road testing them around St Kilda. As I wrote at the time, I found them “liberating” in their potential to get cars off the road and increase riders’ mobility options around inner Melbourne.
“It feels like the start of a tiny-wheeled transport revolution,” I wrote.
More than two years on, rental company Neuron says it will incorporate AI-powered front-facing cameras across its full fleet of 1,250 e-scooters in my home town. The cameras can trigger audio alerts when an e-scooter is ridden on the footpath (which is illegal in Melbourne), which tells riders: “Footpath riding detected; please ride on the road.”
It feels like a welcome step in the right direction – but there’s more we can do to make them safer on our roads.
I say that having just endured a pretty serious scooter accident (not involving a Neuron e-scooter) in Estonia, which has left me with three jaw fractures, a broken wrist and other injuries.
Neuron says that, as well as being able to detect when riders are using footpaths, the technology can also provide warnings about upcoming potholes and road hazards. If these warnings are ignored, the riders can be banned from using the scooters.
While I remain a fan of anything that can get cars off the roads and increase urban mobility, my accident has certainly made me more acutely aware of the risks involved in using e-scooters and just how vulnerable riders are. In my case, such a hazard warning as Neuron is proposing with its AI cameras may have helped.
Before my crash, I’d read the warnings that almost 250 riders had been admitted to Melbourne’s emergency department last year, with many reporting head, face and even fatal brain injuries. But I didn’t expect to be part of those statistics, especially when overseas.
My accident happened in a flash and left me in hospital with three fractures in my jaw, a broken wrist, stitches across my chin and scarring all over my body.
It happened as I was (legally) scooting across a bridge on the footpath to avoid traffic. The path took a sudden downward decline. I hit a bump and was thrown face-first into the pavement. There was blood streaming from my nose, chin and ears, and shocked onlookers called an ambulance.
After a month of treatment, which included wearing a metal splint around my jaw held together by rubber bands, having stitches and scars over my face, and dental work done, I’m well on the way to recovery – although I am still writing with a fractured wrist.
I’m deeply grateful to the free universal emergency health care system in Estonia, which has been top notch. But what I’m hearing from doctors here is the same as I’d read from emergency departments in Australia – these scooters are becoming a public health issue. We are seeing people admitted to emergency wards weekly, many of whom are not so fortunate as me to retain their front teeth, or even their lives.
When a rider topples off a scooter, especially riding downhill, there’s a high chance of landing face-first, as I did. That’s why so many of the dental and orthodontic doctors I spoke with throughout my ordeal said the types of injuries I had were shockingly commonplace – even with a bike helmet, you have little face protection. The accident has made me realise how vulnerable scooter riders are without proper infrastructure to accommodate them.
There’s more we could do to improve scooter safety beyond the AI-powered cameras announced for Melbourne scooters. Other measures could include mandatory indicators for turning, the forced lowering of speeds in special zones via GPS mapping, and encouraging riders to wear face-covering masks as well as helmets.
The bigger issue is that scooters will never be safe unless the infrastructure is in place to ensure riders have safe paths to ride on.
Just pushing scooters on to busy, sometimes dangerously narrow or car-choked roads isn’t a long term solution – with or without AI cameras.
A few people have asked me since my accident if it has put me off riding e-scooters. The answer is no. Feeling a bit like a smoker in a cancer ward, I must confess I’ve already been scooting to some of my medical appointments, albeit way more cautiously.
As road users, we weigh up the risks of riding scooters as we must when riding a bike or driving a car.
But harm minimisation measures, like AI-powered cameras and improved urban mobility infrastructure – along with using our own common sense on the roads – can ensure scooters remain part of our low-carbon transport future.
James Norman is a Melbourne writer and author of the book Bob Brown: Gentle Revolutionary, published by Allen & Unwin. He is currently based in Estonia
