San Diego Scooter News: Ridership Off by Half Since Summer, a Call to Cap Scooters and Badly Injured Rider Goes Home.

Keeping Track of the Scooter

The biggest scooter news in San Diego is on several fronts.

First, San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, Joshua E. Smith broke the news several days ago, that scooter ridership has plummeted by over 50% since summer. Here’s his opening:

It might be the change in the seasons, but since the city of San Diego put its rules for dockless e-scooters in place this summer ridership has been plummeting.

From July to October the number of trips using shared-mobility devices dropped by 50 percent — with rides taken over a two-week time frame going from 441,830 down to 222,076, according to data recently released by the city.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s office, which has touted the scooters as a green alternative to driving, has yet to express concern about the ridership decline. Officials have suggested the dip is likely due to tourism tapering off as winter approaches.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on since the city only started collecting data from the industry this summer, more than a year after many companies first showed up in San Diego.

There’s some very interesting elements in Smith’s article that readers interested in the scooter ought to check out.

Second, now the general manager of Lime San Diego has even called for a cap on the number of scooters in San Diego. Kimia Talebian admitted:

There are too many scooters in too few areas in San Diego.

Talebian added:

It is time for the city to implement a transparent performance-based cap on scooter companies to give it the ability to reward good operators and equitably penalize the truly poor-performing ones.

Under a performance-based cap system, each scooter company starts with a capped number of scooters. Scooter companies can apply for fleet increases based on pre-established metrics like high scooter usage, regulatory compliance, serving underserved areas, innovation and community engagement.

And lastly some good news.

The OB Rag has been following serious injuries that Karen Riggott, 50, of Chula Vista suffered when she fell off an electric scooter on August 3 and hit her head, suffering a brain injury and two brain hemorrhages that left her unconscious for weeks.

Back in early August we reported:

… Karen Riggot, continues to fight for her life after having had a serious crash on a scooter on Saturday, August 3rd.  50-year-old Karen was on Historic Decatur Road around 9:45 a.m. Saturday when she briefly took her hand off one handlebar in order to make an adjustment. As her husband Dean described in a comment to the OB Rag:

“… the handlebar immediately clipped left and the scooter whipped her with such a ferocity that landed only on the back of her head and yet fracture her skull in so many places all the way to the front of her face!”

She was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest and treated for a brain bleed and multiple skull fractures.

The good news is that Karen is going home. She and her husband Dean are now pushing for the city council of Chula Vista to ban scooters. Her skull fracture was one of three that occurred in San Diego is less than one week back during the summer.

There’s almost daily news from scooter world these days and we cannot even keep up. But this is just the very latest. Stay tuned for more.