In LA it's not legal to ride scooters on the sidewalk, so, in theory, people should fear riding scooters too because they're supposed to ride scooters in traffic -- just like the bikes. Of course, in practice, almost everyone rides everything on the sidewalks in LA. Traffic codes are mainly unenforced here.
Even though riding a scooter in the street is often fairly terrifying, I feel like there's some kind of easy mental jump that has people getting on without nearly as much reservation as they would have hopping on a bike.
I assume not wearing a helmet, going fast, downhill?
Interestingly, my first scooter experience was on one without brakes. I suppose I'm just athletic enough to jump off at ~10mph and keep running
Anyway if you happen to see this I was not wearing a helmet, on flat ground. Not proud to say but I was on sidewalk and the rear wheel slipped off the side into soft ground bringing the entire apparatus to a quick halt from prob 15mph. Woke up a few min later with my face on the sidewalk and my legs curled up beneath me. Luckily I was wearing a thick stocking cap which prevented me from more serious injury. Total damage was bruised brow ridge and lip/chin, missing chunk of leg flesh apparently from hitting the handlebars, broken hand, and broken ribs.
That being said, with a scooter you aren't pedaling at all. Even on an e-assist bike you're still getting the adrenaline pumping and sorta sweaty. And a lot of people are afraid of riding bikes in traffic, so while even though bikes are actually much safer, there's a lower mental barrier to entry with scooters. People who almost never ride normal bikes (which is most people) have a harder time adopting the mindset of taking a bike share, e-assist or not.
Plus scooters are straight up more fun to ride with a group of friends - it's a genuinely fun thing to have out of town friends do.