E-scooters linked to 100 serious traffic incidents

Both legal and illegal e-scooters were counted

Electric scooters have been linked to about 100 serious road traffic incidents in Bristol in a year, police confirmed.

Bristol City Council announced the figures to councillors at a meeting, saying e-scooters are behind a rise in crashes.

Group manager for road safety Mark Sperduty said: "It’s about 100 a year we’ve had through police information - about 10% of our killed or seriously injured, and 10% of our slight casualties across the city, so it’s not insignificant."

Tier's legal scooters, and illegal scooters are included in the figures.

Experts at Bristol City Council believe this data underestimates the rise in crashes linked to scooters, as reports from hospital staff suggest higher numbers, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The latest figures, which are from 2022, were told to councillors at a strategy and resources policy committee meeting on Monday.

Nick Smith, strategic intelligence and performance manager, said the numbers show there is a rise.

He said: "We believe incidents related to e-scooters are the particular cause behind the rise. It’s a small number, but it is rising.

"The numbers are quite low, and the data fluctuates year on year.

“From unconfirmed reports of people talking to hospital admission staff, they’re far in excess of what we see."

He added that under the previous contract with Voi, hospitals were seeing 10 times as many accidents as were reported to Voi.

Tier's e-bikes are considered "safer vehicles due to their larger wheels"

"Whether or not those people riding scooters would have used a different mode of transport, and got injured through that, we just don’t know.

"They might have been cycling along the same corridor and had the same issue," he added.

Council staff believe that the new e-bikes, which Tier has recently begun offering as well as scooters, could reduce the number of incidents as they are deemed to be a safer vehicle due to the larger wheels.

The council has a target for zero serious injuries or deaths from road traffic incidents.

Deputy leader of the council councillor Heather Mack said: “There’s a bigger picture on this.

“Do we think having scooters and different methods of travelling has a broader public health benefit, that might be more significant than a number of incidents?”

“I know it’s not the most active travel, but it’s a travel that’s not in a motorised polluting vehicle.”

E-scooters have been a common sight on Bristol’s streets since 2020, when Voi first began operating a rental trial.

This was taken over by Tier last year.