Electric scooters could spur more street thefts, car break-ins, study says

Electric scooters may help thieves pounce on unsuspecting victims and let the crooks make a clean getaway, a new study says.

Researchers found that when rideshare-accessible electric scooters became available in cities, the cheap, nimble mode of transportation coincided with a nearly 18% increase in crime.

“The safety of consumers could be threatened by the entry of e-scooters through an increase in street crimes,” wrote study authors Ruichun Liu of San Jose State University and Unnati Narang of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “For example, e-scooters may facilitate opportunistic theft (e.g., snatching wallets or phones, breaking into parked vehicles) by enabling quick and agile escapes from the scene.”

Researchers looked at e-scooter trends that emerged in Chicago in 2019. 

Data was collected over 41 weeks — 23 weeks before e-scooters arrived in the city, followed by 18 weeks examining how behavior changed after the public could access the scooters.  

The study found that areas with e-scooters experienced a surge in crime on weekends, as well as during non-peak hours, when fewer people were out and about. 

The paper found a 5% increase in street crimes, such as snatch-and-grab thefts of purses, jewelry and other easily grabbable items, and a 25% spike in vehicle-related crimes, mainly break-ins of parked cars.

Neighborhoods with more young people and more racial minorities also saw larger crime spikes during the study period.

Some city leaders noticed the connection between e-scooters and crime before the study was published.

In July and August, Cincinnati closed its bikeshare and e-scooter stations downtown to “prioritize public safety.”

Officials said thieves were renting the rides so they could zip around parking garages and quickly break into parked cars. The bikes and scooters helped thieves evade police once they showed up.

While the study showed a slight decrease in crimes in which the thief had to get off the e-scooter for a home break-in or to shoplift, some criminals had success using the scooter as a getaway vehicle.      

Police in Oregon City, Oregon, said they’re still looking for a robber who held up a bank in July and fled on his personalized e-scooter.

But having an electric scooter doesn’t guarantee a smooth escape.

A man linked to two bank robberies in Sonoma County, California, was arrested in April despite having an e-scooter as his getaway vehicle.

The study further found that violent crimes, such as killings and assaults, didn’t rise significantly with the introduction of scooters. That hasn’t stopped criminals from relying on them to commit serious offenses.

Prosecutors in Syracuse, New York, said a group of juveniles rode on e-scooters to carry out a drive-by shooting in June. The shooting left children aged 8, 9 and 12 wounded.  

And in the District of Columbia, Metropolitan Police said a gunman fled the scene of a deadly July shooting on an electric scooter. Authorities said they arrested 40-year-old Ramone Richardson last month in connection with the killing.