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Objective: To determine self-reported incidences of health and safety hazards among persons who ride rentable electric scooters (e-scooters), knowledge of e-scooter laws, and attitudes and perceptions of the health and safety of e-scooter usage.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey of n= 561 e-scooter riders and non-riders was conducted during June of 2019.
Results: Almost half of respondents (44%) report 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% report crashing or falling off an e-scooter. Only 2.5% of e-scooter riders self-report that they always wear a helmet while riding.
Conclusions: 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.
Kelman and Davies (36:238-41) showed that some non-smokers working in garages attain higher Hbco levels than their smoking colleagues. This point was mentioned but no discussion or explanation was given for this finding.This phenomenon had been noted previously by Curphey' and by Sievers et al.2 The latter group, in their study covering New York's Holland Tunnel traffic officers for 13 years, found that the CO blood levels of non-smokers in the tunnel exceeded those of the smokers. All these men, smokers and nonsmokers, remained healthy after 13 years' exposure, with a rate of heart disease no worse or better than the general population. Kelman and Davies should have considered the several papers available on tunnel traffic officers when making their conjectures on heart disease and garages.Hugod and Astrup's recent paper3 on the possible aetiology of atherosclerosis could not show that carbon monoxide is responsible for the triggering of preatherosclerotic changes in the intima of the coronary arteries.Kelman and Davies state that their interest was initially piqued "when a man became semiconscious while painting the car showroom of a local garage." Would it be reasonable to consider that paint solvent fumes might have been responsible? This possibility is not discussed.
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