As the usage of e-scooters grows in recognition amongst college students, so do security considerations.
“The electric scooters, the different mopeds, electric bicycles we are seeing are very prevalent in our school community, ” stated Graham Johnson, vice-principal at Okanagan Mission Secondary (OKM) in Kelowna, B.C.
“We are seeing students in grade 9 through 12 that are bringing them to school.”
The mode of transportation is broadly utilized by college students at OKM however employees have noticed some regarding practices.
“It’s a huge concern,” stated Johnson. “We’ve seen some students in our community that have been not maybe making some of the best choices they could have — not wearing helmets, riding with more than one person on the scooter.”
In an effort to be proactive and promote transportation security, OKM partnered with varied companies to carry an info session for its college students on Tuesday.
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“Fortunately we have not had any in our local community but we just thought today was a great opportunity to be proactive around this.”
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A few of the companies concerned included Mind Belief Canada, ICBC and the RCMP to drive house the protection message — earlier than it’s too late.
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“A tragedy. I don’t want that to be the reason they learn from this,” stated Kelowna RCMP Const. Mike Della-Paolera.
Della-Paolera stated among the harmful practices embody doubling, even tripling up on scooters, not carrying helmets and weaving out and in of visitors.
“The neighbourhood citizens are noticing it and starting to make complaints,” Della-Paolera stated. “It’s currently one of the number one injuries that they are taken to hospital right now are people that are injured on these forms of transportation.”
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Whereas there are completely different guidelines for e-scooters and e-bikes based mostly on pace capabilities and whether or not they have pedals or not, ICBC says in lots of instances, they’re being pushed illegally.
“When you’re under the age of 16, you should only be riding a traditional pedal bike, ” stated Joel Picard, a driver examiner for ICBC.
“Once you have something that has pedal assist, if it goes over a certain number of CCs (cubic centimetres) or certain speed you need to have a driver’s licence and be insured.”
College students in attendance welcomed the knowledge introduced at their faculty.
“It’s pretty needed because without it then they wouldn’t know the rules of the road and there could be more accidents,” stated Grade 9 scholar Rhys Haslett.
“I think it would open the eyes of a lot of students and really make them think about safety,” stated Grade 10 scholar Money Rezansoff.
Extra info on the foundations surrounding e-scooters and different digital modes of transportation may be discovered on ICBC’s web site.
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