In recent years, the number of people using electric scooters as a means of transport has increased , and with it, the number of accidents . Although the traffic regulations for this type of transport require the mandatory use of a helmet and a maximum speed of 25 kilometres per hour , the reality is that many users do not comply with them .
In addition, sometimes neither scooter drivers nor pedestrians know exactly where they should be riding . The rules require electric scooters to be ridden on urban roads and within them, on the road or the cycle lane, never on the pavement .
However, hospitals often receive injuries caused by accidents involving this type of transport. This is the case of the José Molina Orosa Hospital, where according to traumatologist Luis Fernando Robledo, " several cases related to scooters arrive every week ."
Serious accidents mainly affect young people
Many of these cases become serious due to not wearing the necessary protection for safety. "Some of them require hospitalization and others surgery ," says Robledo.
Furthermore, the type of patients who come to Molina Orosa are mostly young people . "There are high-energy trauma injuries that usually occur in serious car accidents and are not normally seen with scooters or similar vehicles, and they are severe injuries that leave after-effects," explains the doctor.
The type of fractures that they deal with in Traumatology are of the lower limbs such as ankles, tibia and femur . Also head traumas and fractures in hands and arms .
A recent boom
The increase in accidents involving this type of vehicle is relatively recent . "Since electric scooters began to be rented through mobile applications, there began to be patients who came to the scene with injuries caused by their use, but this year the number of injuries due to this has increased even more," says the traumatologist.
As for frequency, arrivals of injured people from accidents with electric scooters are frequent, every week . "For months we have had almost one serious case of accident with electric scooters per week and they are more frequent now than some time ago," says Robledo.
