E-scooters have been in the press quite a bit lately.

Perhaps the most tragic incident being that of the lady who was allegedly hit by a 17 year old e-scooter rider.

That was gut wrenching, and till now, the lady is believed to still be in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Another video of a reckless e-scooter rider weaving through traffic made headlines as well.

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The last big incident in the past few days have been this picture.

This is the narrative that was pushed forth by All Singapore Stuff (ASS).

These are a few of the comments on that article.

With many calling for the ban of these death machines.

And that anger is understandable, a girl just got knocked down by a ruthless e-scooter riding maniac.

Or, maybe she didn't

It turns out, there might not have been any raging e-scooter riders around.

According to Stomp, there is a high possibility that the child had fallen off her manual scooter.

Which would make much more sense than the presence of a maniac e-scooter riding thug at MBS' Promenade area.

So, how did readers react to the debunking of this fictional e-scooter riding thug?

They were still blaming e-scooters.

Even though literally no e-scooter (the girl was allegedly riding a manual scooter) was purportedly involved in this incident.

Perhaps the most damning indicator of the mentality some might have towards e-scooters is this.

Reality

According to Khaw Boon Wan, the rate of accidents involving e-scooters have gone up, from 5 in 2013 to 27 in 2015.

So a review regarding those stats would be welcome, and perhaps even a closer look at requiring licenses could be a possibility.

Earlier in March this year, the 14-member panel Active Mobility Advisory Panel (AMAP) submitted several suggestions for proposed rules and a code of conduct for the safe use of personal mobility devices like e-Scooters.

They suggested that such e-Scooters should not be allowed on the roads but on footpaths instead and capped at speeds of 15 km/h or 25 km/h on shared paths like Park Connectors.

The panel suggested for e-bicycles to require registering with the authorities, but did not suggest the same for e-scooters or even requiring e-scooter/e-bicycle users to go through some sort of training/licensing regime. There should be regulations, that much is seemingly agreed by both riders and pedestrians.

But, those decisions should be made in the context of reality, rather than what people view reality to be.

Top image from Facebook

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