Escooter trial to start

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Jdsk
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Jdsk »

"Reported road casualties Great Britain: e-Scooter factsheet year ending June 2021":
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... -june-2021

Main points
In the year ending June 2021:
there were 882 accidents involving e-scooters, of these 173 were single vehicle accidents, this is around 20% of all e-scooter accidents
there were 931 casualties in accidents involving e-scooters, of these 732 were e-scooters users
of the 931 casualties, 3 were killed (all of them were e-scooter riders)
our best estimate is that there were 253 seriously injured and 675 slightly injured casualties.

Jonathan
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mjr
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by mjr »

Jdsk wrote: 26 Nov 2021, 3:46pm there were 882 accidents involving e-scooters, of these 173 were single vehicle accidents, this is around 20% of all e-scooter accidents
there were 931 casualties in accidents involving e-scooters, of these 732 were e-scooters users
of the 931 casualties, 3 were killed (all of them were e-scooter riders)
our best estimate is that there were 253 seriously injured and 675 slightly injured casualties.
Would anyone like to place a bet on whether the 3 that were killed were from the 173 single-vehicle crashes, or ones where motorists were involved?

The breakdown of 253 seriously injured is also interesting: 199 e-scooterers, 37 walkers, 14 cyclists, 2 motorcyclists, 0 motorists or passengers.

So the people most likely to be killed or seriously injured by e-scooters are probably the users themselves, but maybe they're still more likely to be injured by motorists.
Last edited by mjr on 27 Nov 2021, 10:43pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Stevek76
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Stevek76 »

Without an estimate of the total number of trips and distance, the casualty totals for escooterers is rather meaningless unfortunately.
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mjr
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Re: Escooter trial to start

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Stevek76 wrote: 27 Nov 2021, 11:46am Without an estimate of the total number of trips and distance, the casualty totals for escooterers is rather meaningless unfortunately.
Yes, we need either trial data from the hire operators or to wait for the next National Travel Survey results to get an idea of that. We have a similar problem assessing cyclist casualties each year too: the bad news (more injured or killed) arrives long before the good (many more cycling).
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Bmblbzzz
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Bmblbzzz »

What is the definition of 'casualty'? Is it any case where an ambulance or called and/or someone goes to A&E and says they got their injuries from an e-scooter accident?
Stevek76
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Stevek76 »

Any personal injury. The main data source is the stats19 form filled out by police for all collisions that they attend (or that are reported to them).

There is some subsequent fudging of the figures cross referencing hospital data etc as it's estimated only about a third of slight casualties are reported and a portion of serious are also missing (particularly those not involving motor vehicles) either entirely or misreported as a slight.

If you're wondering whether vexatious anti scooter reports have affected the numbers, I can't see that being significant.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by thirdcrank »

From Jdsk's link
This factsheet provides an estimate of the number of personal injury road traffic accidents involving e-scooters, in Great Britain, in the year ending June 2021 using the STATS19 reporting system. The figures are based on adjusting figures reported by the police for slight and serious injuries to take account of changes in the reporting of injury severity by some police forces in recent years. These adjusted figures can reliably be used to compare trends over time across the country. They are based on what we estimate the totals would be if all police forces were using injury-based severity reporting systems. More information on the change and adjustment process is available in the severity adjustments section. (My emphasis.)
That suggests to me that the only reliable info is the number of deaths. Even then, I'm not confident that a single-vehicle e-scooter crash would make it into a STATS19 booklet.
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by mjr »

Yes, those are problems. There is another dataset called Hospital Episode Statistics which is everyone making it to hospital and it is usually possible to pull out cyclists from that. Maybe it will be similar for escooterers. It tends to overestimate traffic casualties because it includes people who do stuff like drop a bicycle on their head at home.
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Stevek76 wrote: 28 Nov 2021, 10:32am If you're wondering whether vexatious anti scooter reports have affected the numbers, I can't see that being significant.
That hadn't occurred to me. Presumably it does happen that people misattribute the source of their injuries but more, I would think, through mistake or embarrassment than deliberate motives. I was wondering what level of official involvement was necessary for an injury to make it onto the records (police, ambulance, etc? turning up at GP for treatment?) and also the distinction between slight and serious injuries.
thirdcrank
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by thirdcrank »

If I wanted data on traffic casualties, I'd not depend on STATS 19. If I wanted data on single-vehicle casualties involving electric scooters I'd dismiss STATS19 without further ado. Reading between the lines of my ONS quote above, I suspect the ONS have been pressed for stats and with the limited resources available, something based on STATS 19 "will do." Any decisions about legalisation of these machines are going to be based on the industry's lobbying and public opinion.

Hospital data must be better than STATS19.
Stevek76
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Stevek76 »

thirdcrank wrote: 28 Nov 2021, 10:40am That suggests to me that the only reliable info is the number of deaths. Even then, I'm not confident that a single-vehicle e-scooter crash would make it into a STATS19 booklet.
Should show up on the death certificate though.
Bmblbzzz wrote: 28 Nov 2021, 12:28pm I was wondering what level of official involvement was necessary for an injury to make it onto the records (police, ambulance, etc? turning up at GP for treatment?) and also the distinction between slight and serious injuries.
Stats19 is police records so depends if they attend or someone reports it to them (and that they actually do the form filling), no idea what verification the police undertake for reports to them, imagine that may well vary by force.

Most of the latter half of the annual road casualties report is spent discussing data sources and weaknesses so have a browse:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... eport-2019
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thirdcrank
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by thirdcrank »

I'm not suggesting that a fatal single-vehicle scooter crash (electric or otherwise) would go uninvestigated/unreported/unrecorded, merely that if a scooterist (?) crashed into a wall/tree/off a cliff that it might not (IME probably wouldn't) be treated as a "road traffic accident." I think it would be more likely to be a sudden death report to the coroner.

Anyway, the ONS explanation I've quoted didn't mention death certificates.

On a more general level, I wonder why people who seem unlikely to trust the police to tell them the right time attach any credibility to STATS19. :?
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mjr
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by mjr »

thirdcrank wrote: 28 Nov 2021, 12:47pm Hospital data must be better than STATS19.
Why must it? It hasn't been in my experience. If you think police officers are often too stretched to fill out all the paperwork brilliantly for a single-vehicle minor-injury crash, consider the pressures on hospital workers!

I hope the rental trials are collecting good data, but I've not checked
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thirdcrank
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by thirdcrank »

Among my many hobby horses which I've flogged to death on here there's police stats and within that "accident stats."

At the end of one of my first shifts in October 1967, an older-end colleague guided me out of the front office (where I risked being kicked back outside till finishing time) into the labyrinth of hidey-holes round the back where he imparted some bits of paternalistic wisdom. Among this was "Never allege what you cannot prove." That was general advice, but it's illustrated in accident police stats by there being so few collisions where speed is recorded as a "factor" but there are plenty of circumlocutions/euphemisms meaning the same thing.

(Usual proviso: my experience is not recent.)

I must admit I have no experience of hospital stats but at the cynical level, it's hard to imagine they could be worse. I presume things like hospital admissions are logged in real time.
Jdsk
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Re: Escooter trial to start

Post by Jdsk »

mjr wrote: 28 Nov 2021, 6:03pmI hope the rental trials are collecting good data, but I've not checked
I couldn't find a plan for high quality evaluation in any of them.

Jonathan
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