E-scooters reduce bike collision risk, says study

Electric scooter schemes appear to reduce the risk of bicycle collisions by about 20%, according to a study.

University of Bristol researchers compared bicycle collision rates in areas before and after the introduction of e-scooter schemes, with rates in areas without them.

The study, published in the journal Injury Prevention on Friday, looked at routinely collected police data on road collisions in the UK between 2015 and 2023.

"If more people are encouraged to cycle, because the roads are safer, there are potentially even larger positive effects," said Yoav Ben-Shlomo, professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Bristol.

Many rental e-scooter schemes were introduced after the Covid pandemic and police data showed that while overall traffic collisions returned to pre-pandemic levels, bicycle collisions were down by about 20% in areas with scooter schemes.

Combining cycle and e-scooter collisions did not change the results – suggesting that the reduction in bicycle collisions was not masked by more e-scooter collisions, researchers said.

They believe that the findings support the idea that more people using e-scooters and bicycles leads to greater overall safety as they and motorists become more alert to each other.

"We were delighted to confirm the safety in numbers hypothesis but we need further data to be sure this is a real effect," said Professor Ben-Shlomo.

Zoe Banks Gross, founder of cycling group East Bristol Kidical Mass, said: "Increasing actual and perceived safety is important to encourage more people to cycle."

Last year, police confirmed that e-scooters were linked to more than 100 road collisions in Bristol in a one-year period – accounting for about 10% of serious crashes.

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