Time for El Reg to re-take journalism 101?
This article is one of the more egregious cases of journo-activism I have seen in a while.
"222 per cent surge"
Sound a lot worse than three-fold, doesn't it?
"The number of hospital admissions from accidents also skyrocketed to almost 3,300, a surge of 365 per cent"
Yikes - 365 per cent! That's 3,000 compared to... oh wait, let's not report that number.
"The rate of accidents went up from six per 100,000 riders in 2014 to 19 per 100,000 four years later."
That's a whopping 0.00019 per cent. Up from 0.00006. For a more meaningful percentage, let's see how many rides (as opposed to riders) result in injuries. According to the article, each riders uses a scooter approximately - er - oh - it doesn't mention the number of rides for each rider.
Not to worry - we'll just compare it to bike rides, which are somewhat comparable. Oh wait, the article doesn't mention that either.
“It’s been shown that helmet use is associated with a lower risk of head injury,” said Nikan Namiri, first author of the paper and a medical student at the UCSF School of Medicine. “We strongly believe that helmets should be worn, and e-scooter manufacturers should encourage helmet use by making them more easily accessible.”
After all, helmets reduce injury by - er - em - well, I guess that's not reported either.
"79 per cent were under the influence of drugs".
Now we're getting somewhere. So the 0.00019 per cent would be 0.000038 for those of us who have the wisdom to steer clear of drugs before operating an e-scooter.