Edward Celaya: Drink and 'scoot? You'll fly -- into the ground

The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.

Manned flight is always impressive, even more so when propelled by an electric scooter. I should know. I took a one-way flight into the asphalt on Fourth Avenue last Friday.

Let me back up a little. First, yes, I’m the same columnist who spilled nearly 2,500 words worth of ink on the potential dangers and pitfalls of e-scooters just a few months ago. The irony is, shall we say, painfully obvious, especially in my severely sprained right wrist.

Outside of my sprained wrist (and ego) and a few scrapes, I’m just fine. Many others who take the e-scooter tumble are not. Nationally, most e-scooter related injuries affect the upper body, with 45% being head injuries, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

The same study also found that many of those head injuries could have been prevented, or at least mitigated, by wearing a helmet and paying attention to traffic patterns.

“A high proportion of e-scooter related injuries involved potentially preventable risk factors, such as lack of helmet use, or motor vehicle interaction,” a summary of the study said.

Helmets aren’t mandated in Tucson, but that’s not unique. Most cities where e-scooters operate don’t mandate helmet-wearing, mostly due to difficulty in enforcement.

It’s one of the things city staff have been tasked to look into during the last City Council meeting, along with issues of parking and educating the community about proper e-scooter usage.

However, just because e-scooters can be dangerous doesn’t mean they don’t have a niche in the transportation ecosystem to fill.

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If you live within a mile and a half from Tucson’s core, it’s a cheap way to get to-and-from the downtown and Fourth Avenue area. In my case, taking a scooter instead of an Uber home was based on economics; the scooter was just cheaper.

Still, I failed to account for two things: having one too many drinks and riding the scooter on a Tucson street after a significant rain event. After starting up the scooter and riding for about 30 seconds, I hit one of our famous potholes and my arrival at Asphalt Airport was booked.

Now, the same CDC report found that, of all those who suffered an e-scooter injury in its three-month study, nearly half cited a “surface condition like a pothole or crack in the street.”

But I don’t blame the city. I’ve ridden e-scooters almost every weekend they’ve been in town and on multiple occasions in Southern California.

When sober, I’ve avoided or simply jumped off scooters in more precarious road conditions (including a ride of nearly 7 miles down Sepulveda Boulevard in LA, from UCLA to Culver City) than the ones facing me on Fourth last Friday.

No, the blame for my crash rests squarely on my shoulders. Which, probably due to my swimming background, held up really well in the crash. Had I made the adult decision to bite the bullet and pay the extra $2 for a ride home, I could have avoided all of this (literal) pain.

Are there cases where e-scooters malfunction and cause injury? Yes. Do some cities need to improve their transportation infrastructure to account for 21st century modes of transportation? Undoubtedly.

But my case comes down to making a dumb, drunken mistake, one I need only look in the mirror to solve. I’ll be treating riding a scooter drunk like driving a car drunk from now on and avoid becoming a frequent flyer.