VeoRide e-scooters will detect, reward you if you wear a helmet

Riding an electric scooter should be fun and safe. One scooter company is trying to encourage helmet use.

VeoRide, a Chicago-based e-scooter share company, announced a helmet detection tool coming to its scooter rental app next year. Using AI, users scan their mug into the app and the program will determine if they’ve got on proper headwear or not. Select groups are piloting the detection system now before the systemwide rollout in 2020.

It’s not just in the name of safety, though. VeoRide will offer discounts to incentivize helmet use. With a helmet on, you could receive a free unlock fee or other ride discounts applied to your account.  

E-scooter riders are not known for the safest riding habits. A Center for Disease Control and Prevention study analyzing scooter-based injuries out of Austin, Texas earlier this year found less than 1 percent of injured riders wore a helmet during the three-month period. Researchers identified 271 riders injured while scooting. 

States and cities regulate helmet use differently for adults. In California, e-scooter riders are now treated like bicycle riders when it comes to helmets. If you’re over 18 you can choose whether you want to wear a helmet; it’s not required. This change in policy came this year after heavy lobbying from scooter companies, whose riders were often not wearing a helmet. 

VeoRide plans to use the same AI detection process for sidewalk riding — another no-no for scooting in cities.

VeoRide’s co-founders were in San Francisco in July to apply for a permit to operate there. Co-founders Edwin Tan and Candice Xie showed me its swappable battery design that’s already in use in about 40 cities and college campuses where VeoRide operates. 

Upcoming design features are intended to make for easier riding. Instead of using hand gestures to indicate you’re turning VeoRide scooters will have light signals turn on to show you’re making a right instead of a difficult gesture while riding.

Audio directions and riding instructions will play to Bluetooth-connected headphones or speakers on the scooter in another way to make it easier to ride without looking down at a screen.

Tan said scooters “are not a toy anymore,” but a reliable transit option. It’s certainly looking like that case more and more with each day.