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Accidents in Switzerland: electric scooters are practical but dangerous

Riding an e-scooter
An e-scooter course in Lausanne © Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

The number of accidents involving electric scooters has increased 20-fold in a short space of time. The Swiss Accident Insurance Fund (SUVA) expects 3,500 accidents this year.

Practical, easy to transport and inexpensive to maintain, electric scooters are easy to hire in Switzerland’s major cities. Their many advantages mean that they are very popular with different age groups, SUVA noted on Thursday.

On the other hand, they are contributing to an increase in the number of accidents. According to insurance statistics, almost 2,300 accidents involving these vehicles occurred in 2021. In 2018, only around 100 accidents were recorded.

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“Since then, the number of accidents has grown exponentially,” writes SUVA, which expects 3,500 accidents involving electric scooters in 2023.

These machines are not very stable, especially in poor weather. It is very important to drive with caution because of the small wheels, high speed and possible steep inclines when cornering, it stressed.

It reminds people not to use e-scooters in pairs, to adapt their driving style, to wear a helmet and no headphones, and to be visible.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

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