Vancouver police were busy in September, cracking down on e-scooter riders who were not following the rules.
Police said that since Sept. 4, there were 1,226 tickets handed out to e-scooter riders.
The majority were for not wearing helmets.
Insp. Stephanie Willoughby with the Vancouver Police Department said 920 riders stopped were not wearing helmets.
“We’re assuming that they’re going to tell somebody about their interaction and it’s hopefully going to have a positive impact on people wearing helmets in the future,” she said.
Of those 920, 167 tickets were handed out and 753 warnings were issued.
Riding on the sidewalk netted 22 tickets and 159 warnings and two tickets and 82 warnings were given for riding double or with a passenger.
E-scooter rules riders often missed:
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- Helmets must be worn
- E-scooters must be walked on sidewalks and across crosswalks
- Doubling is not allowed
- Riders must be at least 16 years of age
- Front and rear lights should be turned on between sunset and sunrise
- E-scooters should be ridden in cycle lanes or on the far right of roads (they are not allowed on roads with speed limits above 50 km/h)
- The maximum speed for e-scooters is 25 km/h
In July, 30-year-old Shyan Lolly was riding a scooter in the area of Venables Street and Commercial Drive at 10 a.m. when she collided with the side of a vehicle.
She was not wearing a helmet, hit her head on the ground and was conscious when she was transported to the hospital, but she died from her injuries on July 11.
Her family issued a public plea for e-scooter riders to wear helmets.
The Vancouver police’s e-scooter safety blitz continues through the weekend.
Just returned from Europe and the scooters are everywhere but they use the dedicated bike lanes. No-one wears helmets there either. I’m still waiting on a deductible reimbursement from the parent of the grade 7 girl, who along with her friend, crashed into my parked car and caused pricy damage. Guess I’ll be waiting a long time – no integrity on the parents’ part.
Are we pretending that bike riders wear helmets, very few. So here’s the VPD, who a few months ago said they were not going to do enforcement on scooters. Now out there basically apologizing to riders that they have to ask them to wear them. And most are riding on the sidewalk, so should pedestrians just wait to get mowed down. Just ban scooters like so many other cities.
Just ban the frickn things.
Almost none wear helmets, stop signs and red lights are for cars? The only way to stop this is to ban them. Danger to the road and themselves
I cycle about 1300 km per year, both road and mountain biking. Maybe I’m just accident prone, but I replace my helmet on average every 5 years due to having whacked it on something. One crash resulted in a mild concussion so I shudder to think of what state my brain would be in if I weren’t wearing a helmet.
What the actual heck people. Protect your mushy thinking organ! You only get one and we dont know how to fix it when it doesn’t work right anymore!