Dockless e-scooters have been in Austin since 2018, but the city has been playing it safe when it comes to crash data. The rides for rent whizz through the city at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour, but key details about the crashes — how many, how serious, where they happened — are not available from city records.

A new audit reveals that a lack of data is hampering the city’s efforts to regulate the e-scooter market.

Patrick Johnson, one of four people on the audit team, told a panel of city council members that Austin “is unable to identify safety trends or compare safety performance among e-scooter providers or even other modes of transportation.”

Two e-scooter companies reported no crashes in 2022 and 2023, despite logging nearly 3 million rides. Another company, meanwhile, reported 342 crashes during the same period. On average, one person dies in an e-scooter crash each year in Austin.

Part of the problem is the lack of a common definition of what counts as an accident. Police reports often put dockless electric scooters in the same category as gas-powered Vespa-type vehicles. Hospitals, doctors’ offices and the city health department aren’t on the same page either. And motorcyclists often don’t report when they crash.

This isn’t just an Austin problem. A 2022 National Transportation Safety Board report found similar problems across the country and recommended that police keep a separate log of e-scooter crashes.

Other cities are grappling with the same issues. City auditors reviewed laws in Dallas, San Antonio, Denver, Nashville, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Some cities ban the devices outright, while others, like San Francisco, require passengers to have a driver’s license.

Among the cities surveyed, Austin had the second-largest number of e-scooter rentals with 6,700 permitted devices. Seattle has 9,750.

Electric scooters first hit Austin streets in April 2018, as companies like Bird and Lime flooded the market. The high-speed rides were an instant hit with new users, while city officials were left scrambling to cope with tangled clumps of scooters blocking sidewalks and being washed into rivers. The city responded by confiscating the little vehicles until emergency regulations could be put in place.

Since then, the city has charged companies licensing fees, set limits on the number of scooters each company can deploy, and set rules on where and how they can be used. But the vehicles remain wildly popular, with data showing more than 2.6 million scooter rides in 2023 alone, far exceeding the 58,600 e-bike rides recorded in the same year.

Gabriel C. Perez

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KUT News

Electric scooters solve many transportation problems, offering a quick, breezy alternative to trudging through the Central Texas heat across the block or searching for a parking spot downtown. Transit users can get to a bus stop that’s a little too far to walk. Tourists use scooters to visit the shops and restaurants where they spend their money.

“It’s very convenient, I love using them,” Keenan Gurley said after his first ride on an electric scooter. Gurley was visiting Austin from Akron, Ohio, for a gaming and anime convention during a hot week in July. “I like the fact that we can ride on the street and they have bike lanes and stuff for us to ride on so we can avoid traffic.”

In response to ongoing concerns, the city of Austin updated its regulations last spring, reducing the total number of scooters allowed from 8,200 to 6,700 and limiting the number of companies allowed to operate to two. Lime and Bird are currently the only providers in Austin.

But those changes didn’t go through any public process, auditors said. Scooter companies told auditors the city didn’t reach out to them to address their concerns, straining relationships with the companies as the city seeks greater cooperation and compliance.

Gabriel C. Perez

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KUT News

In a statement, Lime said it fully supports the city’s efforts to improve safety.

“As the provider of choice for Austinites, we pride ourselves on being an engaged and proactive partner to the city,” said Chris Betterton, senior operations manager at Lime, in an email. “We pride ourselves on our transparent reporting practices and are eager to work with the city to improve reporting standards, ensuring consistency across all providers.”

Bird did not respond to a request for comment, but sent only an automated email confirming receipt of the message.

The Austin Department of Transportation and Public Works (TPW) — which regulates scooter permits, speed limits, and parking — says it agrees with the audit’s recommendations, such as collecting more reliable crash data. The changes will be implemented by March 2025, TPW reported.

“Public safety is paramount in my role,” TPW Director Richard Mendoza told the City Council’s Audit and Finance Committee.

Mendoza said he was frustrated by the “ugly” proliferation of scooters blocking sidewalks and being dumped in waterways, causing environmental concerns. He said he pushed for new regulations this year but felt he had no choice.

Michal Minasi

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KUT News

“While it may seem like some of the changes I made and the stakeholder engagement process were shortened, I felt compelled to step up and put in place some of these tighter management protocols,” Mendoza said, revealing that he relaxed some of the proposed rules at the request of scooter operators.

After meeting with trauma chiefs at major Austin hospitals, Mendoza said he had pushed for a ban on scooter use during nighttime hours, when the most serious scooter accidents occur. But he withdrew the proposal after a face-to-face meeting with representatives from scooter companies.

“Our suppliers have reminded me that a large proportion of our service staff (in the hospitality industry) use these devices to commute to and from work,” he said, agreeing instead to lower the speed limit for e-scooters from 15mph to 10mph in the city centre during late-night hours.

Mendoza said he wanted to cut the number of electric scooters allowed in half, from 8,200 to 4,100. He did agree, however, to lower the limit by a third to 6,700. And he envisioned increasing the number of micromobility devices for large special events like South by Southwest and the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

“It seems like scooters have been around in Austin for a while,” Mendoza said. “But it’s still a nascent mobility sector.”