Other safety improvements include screens to tell riders how fast they’re going, turn signals and hand brakes. “You don't have to take your hands off for anything,” Prisse notes.
Like Razavi, Prisse has a preference for bikes. Now that the scooters have been updated, however, she says she loves them, too. Getting more people to use alternative forms of transit is important to both Lyft and the Denver Streets Partnership, the women say.Personal-injury attorneys in Denver have seen countless cases of cars hitting scooters in recent years. Occasionally, there are also cases where scooters hit pedestrians — or where a technological malfunction causes a scooter crash.
Cheney believes the larger front wheel, extra visibility and phone mount will help with safety issues; still, he doesn’t think he'll be riding scooters again anytime soon. “There's enough injuries and crashes out there when people are being safe,” Cheney says. “Anything that we can do to try to make people safer when they're out in our city is in our favor. … Do I think this will help? Yes. Do I think it's going to be a silver bullet and all of a sudden we're going to see a lot less crashes? Probably not.”