This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

DENVER (KDVR) — New data shows Denver’s mobility goals do add a safety concern, but not mainly due to poor scooter skills.

Police are still searching for the driver responsible for a hit-and-run that resulted in serious injuries for a scooter rider near Capitol Hill.

Consumer Product Safety Commission data tracked national emergency department numbers — such incidents are not uncommon. The study shows emergency department visits for scooter riders more than tripled from 2017-2019.

Scooter use in Denver is encouraged as part of a city-wide push to decrease automobile use through “micromobility.” Companies like Bird and Lime flooded city streets with the e-scooters beginning in 2018.

National emergency department data tracks along this timeline.

In 2017, there were only 7,700 scooter-related emergency department visits nationally. That number jumped to almost 28,000 by 2019.

It isn’t a matter of scooter-fueled brewery crawls, either. More often, these kinds of accidents are a problem with the scooter, not the rider.

CPSC conducted in-depth investigations of 37 scooter incidents — 32 of which were e-scooters — and found the overwhelming majority were not crashes. More likely, the incidents happened from some kind of mechanical failure.

Of e-scooter-related emergency department visits, 50% came from a brake failure. Only three — just one in 10 of the total — came from some user or environmental factor.