Among the fatalities in crashes involving a mobility scooter in the Netherlands, men are strongly overrepresented: between 2017 and 2019, male scooter users made up 77% of the total in this group. The number of road deaths among users of mobility scooters and enclosed disability vehicles has increased from 19 road deaths in 2010 to 42 road deaths in 2019. The increase in the number of these road deaths in 2010-2019 is probably related to the increased number of these vehicles. This is stated in the SWOV Fact sheet Mobility scooters, vehicles for the disabled and microcars.
The vast majority of road deaths involve older road users (more than 90% is older than 70). Most crashes with mobility scooters and enclosed disability vehicles are single-vehicle crashes involving a fall or collision with an obstacle. Common causes of mobility scooter crashes include: incorrect use of the throttle (squeezing instead of releasing) and tipping of the often unstable mobility scooter because of unevenness of the road surface. Research into mobility scooter crashes provides several starting points for measures relating to the vehicles, infrastructure and training.
Microcars
There is no reliable information about the number of road deaths among occupants of microcars, nor about crash circumstances. The crashworthiness of microcars is poor, a.o. because of its maximum weight of 350 kilos and the sometimes significant speed differences with other traffic. Moreover, some microcar models are hard to distinguish from ‘ordinary’ small city cars, and are therefore also hard to recognise.
