DALLAS, Texas — Rental scooters re-emerged in Dallas after their short stint with the city years ago, and some folks aren't entirely happy.
They were welcomed, loved, hated, loathed, and dangerous before they were suspended in 2020.
The city relaunched them with tighter safety restrictions on May 24, and since then, a spokesperson told WFAA that 560 complaints to 311 have been made.
The spokesperson didn't get back to WFAA when asked what each complaint regarded. They also didn't elaborate or say how many complaints were resolved.
When the two-wheelers first showed up in the summer of 2018, many people weren't pleased with the sidewalk clutter they created. It was worse when riders wouldn't park them correctly or if they were left knocked over and discarded.
New regulations and restrictions are in place to make things less cluttered and safer. Riders can now be fined $20 if bikes or scooters are improperly parked. You can read the new regulations here.
While the city keeps track of complaints, Baylor Scott and White (BSW) Medical Center in downtown Dallas is again starting to track scooter injuries.
The hospital did so once the scooters arrived in 2018 and found from July of that year to September 2019 that 322 people visited the ER after a scooter crash and that 55 required hospitalization, with 14 being taken to the ICU.
The hospital also recorded one death, 24-year-old Jacoby Stoneking, who died while riding a scooter on South Munger Boulevard.
Stoneking's family has long questioned if a hit-and-run driver struck Stoneking and left the area.
The city reviewed BSW's data in a push to make rental scooters a bit safer.
There are fewer this time, and they can't be used beyond 9 p.m. BSW found that a majority of accidents happened after 7 p.m.
Still, Dr. Alan Jones, an orthopedic trauma surgeon for Baylor Scott and White, told WFAA anecdotally that his team has done several surgeries and has already seen patients due to scooter crashes or wrecks.
"Some of those have been significant injuries requiring emergency surgery and hospitalization," Dr. Jones said. "The first thing our trauma team members said: we should start holding some places in the surgery schedule for scooter injuries."
Dr. Jones said many patients didn't expect the scooters to go so fast or felt uncomfortable riding them.
He added that some mentioned they had ridden on the sidewalk instead of the street and encountered unexpected obstacles.
"If you're going to use an electric scooter, then I would advise learning how to use it beforehand," Dr. Jones said.
BSW also found, and WFAA reported in 2019, that rental scooter injuries generated $1.4 million in hospital costs from 2018 to 2019. Of that, $491,000 in uninsured trauma costs are included.
The hospital may never recover those costs. And since it is a level 1 trauma center, taxpayers may even help reimburse the loss.
More information about crashes and the costs of injuries should be known within the coming months.