A bill to make helmets optional for electric scooter riders will have a public hearing in Salem this week.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Sheri Schouten, D-Beaverton, goes before the Joint Committee on Transportation at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Oregon’s current law requires all electric or gas scooter users wear helmets, regardless of age. Scooters are regulated more stringently than Segways, which have no helmet requirement. State rules require bicyclists under the age of 16 to wear a helmet.

Schouten’s bill, HB271, would regulate scooters like bikes. Scooter riders would only be required to wear a helmet if under the age of 16.

But in effect, the bill would make helmets optional for all scooter riders. State rules require scooter users to be at least 16 years old to ride, but the companies required customers be at least 18 to sign up. But it wasn’t an uncommon sight in 2018 to see younger teens on the devices around Portland.

The legislation could effectively knee-cap the biggest complaint scooter detractors made to city hall last year. According to the Bureau of Transportation’s report on the 2018 three-month trial period, the city received 1,754 companies about riders not using helmets. That’s the largest single point of scorn, followed next by users riding on sidewalks, with 1,622 complaints.

Transportation Department staff estimated that 90 percent of riders did not wear a helmet.

Lime, Bird and Skip, the three companies that operated in Portland in 2018, held helmet giveaways during the trial period to try and boost usage.

According to the city’s report, the companies distributed 2,292 helmets to riders last year.

Dylan Rivera, a city transportation spokesman, said the agency would not take a position on the proposed helmet bill.

“We certainly encourage everyone to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle, an e-bike or an e-scooter. So that might be a reason to support the current law,” Rivera said in an email.

“On the other hand, we can understand how there could be value in having consistency between the laws for bicycles and e-scooters,” Rivera continued. “Our citywide public opinion survey showed that Portlanders want us to use education rather than enforcement when it comes to e-scooters. And we generally agree that it’s best to focus our limited enforcement resources on corridors where we have fatal and serious injury crashes,” he said.

The city plans to start a second “pilot program” sometime this spring, this time approving scooters for 12 months. A specific start date has not been released.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen

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