Thirteen people have been hospitalised after a spate of e-scooter and e-bike crashes across Queensland on Friday night and Saturday morning – with a 14th life-threatening accident reported on Sunday – ahead of fresh public hearings into the vehicles’ safety and enforcement.
Paramedics were called to 11 separate incidents, from Biloela to Palm Beach, between 6pm on Friday and 4.30am on Saturday – most in the south-east and all but two involving e-scooters.
In the worst accident, a teenage boy suffered significant foot injuries on the Gold Coast after an “e-scooter and vehicle incident” about 6pm, paramedics said.
Since their introduction in Brisbane in 2018, the popularity of e-scooters and bikes has surged – along with injuries. Credit: Matt Dennien
Then in Logan, a man in his 30s suffered what were described as significant leg injuries after an e-scooter fall just after 7pm. Both were taken to hospital in a stable condition.
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Eleven other people – two teenage girls, a primary school boy, and a number of men and women aged from their 20s to 40s – were also hospitalised after separate incidents.
On Sunday afternoon, police reported a 33-year-old woman was taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition after an e-scooter crash at Aroona on the Sunshine Coast about 12.30pm.
Hire e-scooters first arrived on Brisbane streets in late 2018, with the popularity of shared and private devices – along with enforcement and injuries – surging in the years since.
The separate e-bike deaths of two boys last month added to pressure on the Crisafulli government to take action to address the number of injuries and deaths across the state.
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