E-scooter rider in Guelph dies from injuries

An e-scooter rider who was found by the side of the road with life-threatening injuries in Guelph on Wednesday has died.

Emergency crews were called to Victoria Road near MacAlister Boulevard around 9:15 p.m.

“The passerby had located a male lying on the side of the road with obvious head injuries,” police spokesperson Scott Tracey said on Thursday.

Police said a 52-year-old man was travelling in the bike lane along the shoulder of Victoria Road. He was taken to a Hamilton trauma centre.

Police are still investigating, but do not believe the e-scooter rider collided with a vehicle.

"I think it’s important to note this was not a collision in the traditional sense where there was a motor vehicle and a pedestrian or something of that nature," Tracey said on Monday. "We believe it was a person who fell from the scooter rather than being involved in a traffic collision."

Investigators are looking to talk to anyone who may have seen a man riding an electric kick scooter on Victoria Road South between Arkell Road and Stone Road East shortly after 9 p.m. They're also asking anyone who has dash cam footage of the area to contact them – whether the man can be seen in it or not.

“We want to know who was in the area and what exactly happened,” Tracey said.

The crash comes less than a month after the City of Guelph joined Ontario’s e-scooter pilot program, allowing the vehicles to be operated on city streets with a speed limit of 50 km per hour or less, as well as designated cycling and multi-use paths.

"The difficulty with tracking these kind of things is they’re not often reported,” Tracey said. “Someone’s riding an e-scooter and they fall and they scrape their arm or break a finger they often don’t report that. That’s not the type of thing we can track if people don’t tell us how they sustain the injury in the first place.”

A city bylaw also requires all riders below the age of 18 to wear a helmet.

With files from CTV Kitchener’s Tyler Kelaher