Rising mobility scooter injuries toll prompts calls for regulation

ALMOST three senior Victorians a week are landing in hospital after crashing, or being struck by, mobility scooters, prompting calls to regulate or even register the vehicles.

ALMOST three senior Victorians a week are landing in hospital after crashing, or being struck by, mobility scooters, prompting calls to regulate or even register the vehicles.

Over the past decade, more than 1000 Victorians aged over 50 have been treated in emergency departments for scooter injuries. The injury toll has climbed by more than half.

Head, leg and other injuries have been so severe that half the victims have had to be admitted to hospital or transferred for further treatment, figures from the Monash Accident Research Centre show.

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The injury toll for mobility scooter users is rising.

The Senate is reviewing laws about use of scooters.

NSW senator John Williams, who is leading the inquiry, believes more regulation is urgently required.

“We can do nothing, and the figures will only get worse as the number of scooters increases with our ageing population,” he said, “or we can get some sort of regulation in to make it safer for riders, pedestrians and car users.

“One of my gripes is that in most states, these scooters have the same regulations as pedestrians but can travel twice as fast,” Senator Williams said.

“My wife was hit by a mobility scooter and needed a total hip replacement, but it could have been far worse.”

More than 1000 Victorians aged over 50 have been treated in emergency departments for scooter injuries in the past decade.

Last year, 131 senior Victorians landed in emergency departments with mobility scooter-related injuries, up from just 59 in 2008-09 and 84 in 2007-08.

While 560 of the 1000 were hurt after falling, in 150 cases a person was hurt after crashing a mobility scooter into another motor vehicle. Another 79 people were hurt when colliding with an object, and 11 suffered “unspecified” collisions.

Half of the crashes were on roads or streets, while one in five were in homes. Just 2.4 per cent were in nursing homes or institutions.

Senator Williams said licensing and testing could help prevent accidents. Riders in Queensland were already required to register scooters.

He said: “We hear of cases where people fail their driver’s licence test, and then their family buys them a second-hand scooter. I would like to see them much slower on footpaths and in heavy pedestrian traffic.”

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