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Electronic scooters have zoomed in popularity over the past few years, along with reports of accidents and annoyed pedestrians and drivers competing for road and sidewalk space.

Students in a course taught by IU McKinney Adjunct Professor Amber Comer, ’11, Assistant Professor, School of Health & Human Sciences at IUPUI studied the issue in 2019, and the results of their work are set to be published in Chronicles of Health Impact Assessment.

Students collected the data—a survey of 561 e-scooter riders and non-riders in Indianapolis—and wrote the paper, “Electric Scooters (e-scooters): A Threat to Public Health and Safety” as the outcome of the course.

Almost half of respondents (44 percent) reported that e-scooters pose a threat to the health and safety of riders. Riders and non-riders disagree regarding the hazards that e-scooters pose to pedestrians. Among riders, 15 percent report crashing or falling off an e-scooter. Only 2.5 percent of e-scooter riders self-report that they always wear a helmet while riding.

From the survey, Professor Comer and her students concluded that e-scooter riders report substantial rates of harmful behavior and injuries. Knowledge of e-scooter laws is limited, and e-scooters introduce threats to the health and safety of riders, pedestrians on sidewalks, and automobile drivers.

Enhanced public health interventions are needed to educate about potential health risks and laws associated with e-scooter use and to ensure health in all policies. Additionally, greater consideration should be given to public health, safety, and injury prevention when passing relevant state and local e-scooter laws.

“I am very proud of the students because they collected the data and engaged in analysis in order to make an evidenced based policy recommendation for e-scooter use,” Professor Comer said. “The topic of e-scooter use was one that I presented to the class as I wanted the students to work on a topic that would be both interesting and relevant to them.”

Professor Comer designed the course to teach law students how to use evidence when setting laws and policies and when evaluating whether laws and policies are working. She involved Ph.D. students and undergraduate research assistants to help with data collection and analysis.

“The publication is a really wonderful combination of students of different backgrounds coming together,” she said. “It is our hope that this publication will affect policy decisions on e-scooter use in not just Indianapolis, but in other cities across the country. There have not been any other studies of this kind published.”

IU McKinney Law students who contributed to the paper include recent McKinney graduates Zoe Bestmann, ’20, and Star Meyer, ’20, and current McKinney students Jacob Bradshaw, Emily Burchfield, Brittany Harmon, Rebekah Legg, Patrick O’Brien and Micha Sabec.

Professor Comer, Ph.D., J.D., holds an appointment as an affiliate research scientist at the Regenstrief Institute. Additionally, Professor Comer is a member of the Eskenazi Hospital medical ethics committee and ethics consultation service. She is an expert in medical decision making whose research has led to a change in Indiana’s Health Care Consent Law. Professor Comer received an Early Career Achievement Award in 2017 from Indiana University McKinney School of Law for her work changing Indiana’s Health Care Consent Law.