A woman suffered a skull fracture and cuts to her face during a solo scooter accident in Downtown San Diego early Friday morning, the San Diego Police Department announced.
A 35-year-old woman rode a scooter at around 2 a.m., crossing Broadway and Union Street. Police say the scooter hit a raised curb, which caused her to fall from the vehicle. Police said the woman was transported to a hospital for treatment for non-threatening injuries.
Nobody was involved in the incident, but police say alcohol was a factor in the crash.
Scooter-related insurance has increased after pandemic restrictions softened, especially in downtown San Diego. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Scripps Mercy Hospital in Hillcrest documented 52 scooter-related trauma cases in 2021, compared to 9 in 2020. Prepandemic numbers were still lower than the latest, with 43 in 2019 and 37 in 2018.
San Diego cracked down on electric scooters in late May, regulating sidewalk usage, rules against staging scooters in large clusters, and a ban on parking scooters outside of city-painted corrals.
The new rules would give companies one hour to respond after being notified that their scooters are parked on the sidewalk, and if they don’t take care of it, the scooters could be impounded with companies also paying a fine. The city seeks to cap the number of scooters from 11,050 citywide to 8,000 and limit the number of providers that can operate in San Diego.
San Diego had also filed a lawsuit against scooter companies last year, aimed to force scooter companies to defend the city in lawsuits filed by riders or those who were hurt in some way by shared mobility devices.
The city’s most recent round of scooter permits will expire in July.
