More on E-Scooters

Yesterday, we posted about reimbursements for business travel on e-scooters and other such devices. Below is a Bruin op ed dealing with another aspect of the e-scooters on campus:

Scooters are menaces on our campus that cause injuries to innocent people.

The injuries can even get as bad as a broken hip. In fact, that has already happened at UCLA.

On Sept. 24, at about 11:15 a.m., Juming Zhao, a consultant to universities in China, was walking on Charles E. Young Drive South, crossing the street to Tiverton Drive, and hit by an individual riding a scooter. Three students helped Zhao stand up, but the person responsible for the accident fled the scene.

Zhao phoned his wife, Su Chen, the head librarian of the UCLA East Asian Library. Chen took Zhao to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center emergency department, and the attending doctor examined Zhao and ordered an X-ray. At that time, the doctor told Zhao he did not find any fractures on his hip and discharged him. During this visit, the emergency department nurse mentioned to Zhao and Chen that there have been several scooter injuries on campus.

Zhao’s diagnosis changed early the next morning when his primary care physician phoned to inform him that the radiologist had reviewed his X-ray and found his right hip had fractured. The physician requested Zhao to immediately return to the medical center for surgery.

Zhao was operated on the next day. He was bedridden for a week and walked with the assistance of a walker and cane for three months. Zhao had to cancel all of his consulting work for the remainder of 2018.

To this day, he still walks with pain. He can only hope the injury will heal and not adversely affect him for the rest of his life.

UCPD received the report of Zhao’s injury from the hospital emergency department on the same day of the accident. A campus police officer came to see Zhao at the hospital and interviewed him regarding the scooter accident. Several days later, another police officer came to Zhao’s home for a second interview, informing him that several scooter incidents had occurred on campus and that the department had not been able to trace and apprehend the people responsible for those accidents.

UCLA is a world-class institute of higher learning contributing to the teaching and growth of future generations of leaders. It troubles me that someone, most likely a student, collided with Zhao and got away without any sense of responsibility or concern for their victim. The fact that the UCPD has responded to other cases of scooter accidents, but were unable to apprehend the scooter riders causing the accidents, speaks to the issue of moral responsibility of not only the unconscionable riders, but also the bystanders who witnessed such accidents.

In light of the scooter accidents and injuries inflicted on the victims, I urge UCLA to ban scooters on campus until rules are put in place to ensure the safety and health of the community, especially the elderly and those with disabilities.

The encouragement of our Bruin community members to walk or bike on campus will not only contribute to everyone’s personal safety, but will provide a healthy alternative to the use of scooters.

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Author Virginia Li is a research professor and professor emeritus in the Fielding School of Public Health’s department of community health sciences.
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Source: http://dailybruin.com/2019/01/24/op-ed-scooters-on-campus-pose-a-threat-to-the-safety-of-uclas-campus/