By Charles Pekow — Scooter riders will use a bike lane when available, a recent review found. They generally prefer it to the sidewalk. The study, done by researchers from the universities of Utah and Arizona, included both an online survey and personal observations in Salt Lake City and Tucson.
But given a choice between a road and a sidewalk when no bike lane is present, the sidewalk more often wins when light rail tracks are present. Who wants to be hit by a train? And the more lanes of traffic, the more likely riders will opt for the sidewalk.
But can you trust surveys? Of those responding, 21 percent said they sometimes or always wear helmets. But the observations found only 2 percent were using them.
See Scooting to a New Era in Active Transportation: Examining the Use and Safety of E-Scooters at https://nitc.trec.pdx.edu/news/scooting-new-era-active-transportation-examining-use-and-safety-e-scooters.
