Electric Scooter Companies Risk Backlash from Regulators for Customers' Risky Behavior

Several electric bike and scooter-sharing companies have started up within the past couple of years. One of the biggest companies flooding the streets of major cities like Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and San Fransisco is Bird, now referred to as the Uber of scooters, which seemed to appear out of nowhere less than a year ago. But, while the scooters have grown ever more popular among their growing base of users, Bird has faced backlash from the cities and some of their residents. According to Tracey Lien's L.A. Times article, despite Bird's efforts, the users of the electric scooters consistently ignore local laws and safety guidelines.

But what can Bird really do about it? The cities have tried upping regulations on the scooter companies, they've issued fines and citations, and they've even forced Bird to update their terms and conditions to try to guarantee safer practices. Still, little has changed in terms of user behavior. Bird can add extra rules to their app and make users agree to wear a helmet. Bird can even provide their customers with helmets for free. But there's no way for Bird to actually guarantee that their customers will use the helmets.

After trying to deal with the problem through the company, the cities have had to try other alternatives in promoting safer riding. They have been able to get companies like Bird to improve safety guidelines and commit to providing a percentage of their daily income to the city to go toward improving infrastructure, which could, in turn, promote greater safety and improve user experience. But, they've also tried going after the individual riders, which has worked, to an extent. By issuing citations and fines to scooter-riders not wearing helmets, local police have been able to get some riders to make a more conscious decision and wear a helmet because they don't want to have to pay over $100 for not doing so. Other users choose to avoid the scooters altogether, determining that the risk of a ticket is too high to justify the enjoyment or convenience that the scooters provide.

Still, others continue riding the scooters, and just hope that they never get stopped by the police. They find helmets to be uncomfortable, or inconvenient. Many riders don't wear helmets simply because they don't have their helmet with them. These types of ride-sharing services tend to attract spur-of-the-moment users, not those who knew they would use one from the time they left their house in the morning. The only way for every rider to wear a helmet is if all potential users carried around a helmet with them all day, which just isn't realistic. Some dockable bike-sharing companies have had systems where a user could retrieve a helmet when renting a bike, but such a business design had higher costs, which led many of those companies to go out of business. There have been dozens of injuries reported in recent months, mostly involving scrapes and bruises, but some with broken bones and head trauma. There doesn't seem to be an obvious solution to the problem at the moment, but if Bird and similar companies don't make a change, major cities could start banning the scooters altogether.

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