Electric scooters are sending scores of people to the hospital

[MUSIC] So in the past six or seven months, we've seen more than a hundred cities in the US get these rentable, dockless, motorized scooters. And we're seeing a lot of accidents rack up in emergency rooms. Over the past few weeks I've been talking to doctors and emergency rooms in several major cities. And they say they're seeing the rate of these accidents happen anywhere from maybe ten a month to ten a day. Well I've heard all sorts of stories. A lot of people. they just lose control of the scooter because they don't quite know what they're doing. Other incidents I've heard is that people's breaks haven't worked. I've also heard incidents where they push on the throttle and the scooter just keeps going. A lot of doctors are saying most of the injuries they see coming in are people without helmets. A lot of people renting the scooters are tourists, they're not traveling with helmets, or people just going about their day to day lives, they're not carrying around the helmet. And this is contributing to a lot of head injuries. [MUSIC] That's part of the problem with the scooters. There's different laws in different states, different cities, so people don't really know what the rules are. Some states require helmets, some don't. In California, it used to be the law that everyone had to wear a helmet, but one of the scooter companies, Bird, backed a bill to get that helmet requirement taken out. And so, starting January, people won't have to wear helmets in California. [MUSIC] So scooter companies say safety is their top priority, they have stickers on their scooters that say people should wear helmets. Bird, one of the scooter companies, gives people free helmets, they'll send them to them in the mail if they ask for them. So when you sign up to rent one of these scooters, you have to click through agreements in the app, and basically those agreements are taking on full responsibility for what happens with that scooter. So is absolves the scooter companies of any responsibility or liability. So if you get hurt, it's your fault, not the company's. [MUSIC] As these accidents wrack up, a lot of people are actually trying to sue the scooter companies because when your brakes go out down a hill there has to be some responsibility taken So this is such a new technology. None of these cases have been heard by a judge or been in any court yet, so it's gonna be really interesting to see how it progresses and how the laws kind of shake out and if those terms of agreement really can have effect. Every single doctor I've spoken to says you should definitely wear a helmet when riding one of these scooters because it can save your life. [MUSIC].