Research to track injuries stemming from e-scooter, e-bike use in Halifax
CBC
A Halifax Regional Municipality pilot project that allows people to rent e-scooters and e-bikes saw 118,246 rides during its first six months, but data on injuries riders have sustained is far less specific — for now.
At a recent Halifax active transportation advisory committee meeting, Halifax's project manager of shared micromobility, Brittney MacLean, acknowledged this.
"We're hoping that at some point we'll be able to gather more of that data in through, whether it be through the hospital, emergency rooms or … ambulance and paramedic data," she said.
"I don't have information right now, but I know that the municipality has been very interested in that and Nova Scotia Health has been a close partner in trying to sort out that information."
MacLean was unavailable for an interview prior to publication of this story.
Nova Scotia Health told CBC News that emergency department visits aren't tracked by cause.
"We are more focused on the injury itself, and less about what may have caused it," the health authority said in a statement.
Dr. Kirstin Weerdenburg, a trauma team leader at the IWK children's hospital in Halifax, has closely watched the rise in popularity of e-scooters.
"You see them all over the city, sometimes just laying on the sidewalk, and people riding around in them, mostly without helmets," she said.
While the devices are equipped with helmets, not all riders choose to use them.
At the IWK, where patients are admitted up until their 16th birthday, Weerdenburg has some observations about the kinds of injuries she sees from e-scooter accidents.
"I'd say the majority of the kids that I'm seeing are not wearing helmets," she said. "And so they have a head injury, concussion or more significant ones with bleeding around the brain."
Weerdenburg said the hospital collects injury data as part of a national pediatric emergency department database. And since Halifax introduced its micromobility pilot program, staff at the children's hospital are asking more questions about whether the devices belong to the patients or if they've been rented.
To rent one of the devices, people are supposed to be at least 16 years of age.
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