Growing concern in Baltimore over the safety of dockless vehicles such as electric scooters and bikes is understandable considering the spate of recent crashes including one that caused the death of a 16-year-old in Upton who was riding with a friend last month when their moped collided with a Jeep or the death of a 31-year-old scooter rider who was struck in East Baltimore last July by a car driven by a teen. The message from public health professionals? Wear a protective helmet. Such motorized vehicles travel much faster than their non-powered counterparts and that raises the injury stakes considerably.

But has everyone gotten the message? It’s telling that on the Baltimore City Department of Transportation’s own website describing dockless vehicles, in addition to safety tips and the rules of the road, there is a video warning scooter riders to respect the needs of fellow travelers who are blind or disabled and require a motorized wheelchair. Yet the scooter rider in the nearly two-minute-long public service announcement is not shown wearing a helmet nor even warned about that shortcoming.

Sadly, that’s probably a realistic portrayal. E-scooters rented through a smartphone app don’t come with helmets and, while helmets are required of users under age 16, the lack of use continues to be a problem.

PSAs and similar information campaigns have their place in promoting safety. So does police enforcement when it’s needed (although we’d be quick to add that officers probably have other more urgent public safety obligations). But how about simply getting more helmets into the hands of riders? We get that the business plan is to make affordable dockless vehicles easy to access but if their use results in serious injury and even death (with at least 233 fatalities nationwide, according to the 2022 CPSC report), isn’t that too high a price to pay? Maybe it’s time that shared vehicles came with shared helmets — with disposable liners to make them more sanitary, if needed. Our response to these serious injuries needs to be a bit stronger than a mild warning on the apps.