After drunk on a scooter. Plague among two -wheelers?

As many as a quarter of accidents that occur on electric scooters, is related to alcohol or drugs – these are the conclusions of a study conducted in the USA. At the same time, the number of such events has increased in recent years – the authors of the analysis notice.

Scientists from the University of California – Los Angeles warn that combining driving on an electric scooter with substances changing awareness is a very bad idea. They analyzed data on over 7,000 patients hospitalized in 2016-21 due to accidents that took place during the use of these vehicles. Up to 25 percent Accidents concerned people under the influence of alcohol, opioids, marijuana or cocaine.

At the same time, the results showed that Over the past 5 years, the number of accidents increased from 330 to over 2,700 a year. In addition, people leading the scooter under the influence of intoxication were clearly twice more vulnerable to brain injuries.

Weakening reactions also caused an average increase in the costs of hospitalization of one patient by as much as $ 4,600.

Researchers emphasize that the increase in the popularity of e-Hulajnóg coincided with an increased number of injuries related to them, but the role of stimulants in these cases was not well examined before.

“In today's realities, when the use of scooters is growing dynamically, our study shows how much impact on the increase in the number of serious, expensive and largely possible injuries is to use psychoactive substances,” says Dr. Areti Tillou, the main author of the work published in the pages of “The American Surgeon”.

Researchers indicate the need to reduce the risk of injuries, which can be achieved with the help of basically simple methods.

“Our study only included hospitalized persons, and therefore probably does not seek the actual number of injuries. As city centers develop shared micromobility systems, the growing scale of the use of stimulants among scooter users raises serious concerns about their safety. These results clearly indicate the urgent need to tighten the provisions regarding security, enforcing the obligation to wear helmets and limiting the use of psychoactive substances.

Marek Matacz (PAP)

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