E-scooters

There has been a spate of very serious injuries involving e-scooters, and resulting claims, throughout Australia since 2018:

• In Victoria, after extensive trials, private e‑scooters will be permanently legalised from October with additional safety and compliance measures.¹ However, hire e-scooters have been banned from Melbourne’s CBD mid trail due to safety concerns.² There has been a doubling of hospital presentations for e-scooter related injuries in 2023 – with almost 1000 people rushed to Victorian emergency departments during the course of the year.³ A study examining data from the Royal Melbourne Hospital in the year to January 2023 found that the total hospitalisation cost for the hospital was more than $1.9 million, with a median cost of $1,321.66 per patient.⁴
• Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia reported 62 e-scooter patient admissions in 2022, and within the first two months of 2023 there had been 19 patient admissions related to e-scooter injuries.⁵ In Broome, there were 190 e-scooter-related injuries between 1 April 2023 and 30 April 2024.⁶ St John WA reported that ambulance callouts had increased by more than 60 per cent in 2023 for e-scooter related incidents. ⁷
• In Queensland, e-scooter related presentations to hospitals have been rising – from 691 in 2021 to 1,273 in 2023.⁸ Joint research conducted by the Jamieson Trauma Institute (funded by the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital Foundation and the RACQ) found that 50 per cent of e-scooter related patients incurred head and facial injuries.⁹ Relatedly, the Jamieson Trauma Institute reported that workers’ compensation claims for e-scooter crashes had tripled, with 421 claims being made between 2018 and 2022.¹⁰ The public e-scooter company Beam lost its licence to continue operating in Brisbane as did Neuron in the Sunshine Coast.¹¹
• In June 2024, privately owned e-scooters were legalised in South Australia.¹² In the city of Adelaide, there were 14 reported e-scooter injury related incidents in 2023, prompting serious concerns within Adelaide City Council about extending Adelaide’s e-scooter trial (which has been running since February 2019) without the South Australian Government reforming legislative insurance requirements – this is unlikely to occur until at least early 2025.¹³
• One-third of the 135 e-scooter injury presentations to emergency departments in Tasmania during the first six months of the Hobart e-scooter trial (December 2021 to June 2022) required “operative interventions”.¹⁴
• In the Northern Territory over an eight-month period to September 2021, 111 emergency department presentations were related to e-scooter usage – including brain bleeds and broken spines.¹⁵
• There have been media reports of increased hospital admissions due to incidents involving e-scooters in the Australian Capital Territory.¹⁶ A clinical study conducted by two doctors from Brindabella Orthopaedics found that there were 520 presentations related to e-scooters between July 2020 and July 2021.¹⁷
• In New South Wales, where it is currently legal to buy an e-scooter but illegal to use it in public (unless as part of a shared e-scooter trial),¹⁸ there were 124 e-scooter crashes reported to police between 2020-2023 resulting in 3 fatalities, 116 injuries and 40 serious injuries.¹⁹
• The Australian Automobile Association (AAA) published a statement on 29 January 2024 highlighting that nationally, “Australian official road deaths are failing to accurately record deaths and injuries among e-scooter riders because of glaring inconsistencies in data collection and reporting between states and territories.”²⁰ This highlights that the numbers of deaths and injuries as a result of e-scooters could be far more than is known and reported currently.

Currently, gaps in insurance coverage have meant that those injured by or while riding e-scooters are not eligible to recover compensation.

This can leave people injured by or while riding e-scooters in a financially precarious position, especially where the rider does not have CTP insurance (which is largely not required in Australia). Riders can thus only rely on personal insurance, and anyone else injured must rely on loss of income insurance and/or the ride having third party insurance. The ALA submits that, especially given the age of those riding e-scooters generally, only a small group of Australians will be adequately covered by insurance.

Many who use an e-scooter or e-bike are probably unaware, therefore, that they put the entirety of their assets (including their home) on the line if they cause injury to someone else while using that e-scooter or e-bike. E-scooter or e-bike users need insurance cover to avoid being sued personally.

Similarly, those who are run down by an e-scooter or e-bike could suffer serious injury and yet be left to meet their own lost wages and medical bills. No one should be in the position of losing their own home after being the innocent victim of the negligent use of an e-scooter or e-bike by an impecunious, uninsured rider.

Though many commercial providers have recently updated their insurance policies to provide users wider scope, accidents involving any illegality are uncovered.¹ There are also gaps within many government-regulated compensation frameworks affecting recovery of compensation.²

The ALA proposes the following reforms for consideration by state and territory jurisdictions across Australia, where applicable:

• Government- and council-run e-scooter hiring trials should be comprehensively reviewed before being extended and certainly before any e-scooter hiring programs are made permanent, to ensure that the general public is safe when hiring e-scooters and that those riding them are properly insured.
  • Approvals for e-scooter programs or areas where e-scooter riding (via commercially-hired e-scooters and/or privately-owned e-scooters) has been allowed should be regularly reviewed.
  • The reviews recommended above should all assess whether:
    • riders and the general public are safe, including in terms of injuries and deaths, and that safety requirements for riders, such as wearing helmets, are enforced by commercial e-scooter hire companies and also by local authorities;
    • riders are covered by adequate insurance coverage; and
    • legislation, regulations, policies, contracts and road safety requirements are up-to-date to ensure safety in relation to e-scooter programs and areas where people can hire/ride e-scooters, and that unsafe behaviour can be responded to (for example, with fines).
• Relatedly, it must be mandated in all states and territories that commercial e-scooter hire companies offer high-level insurance, which covers both riders and any injured members of the general public.
• It must be mandated that private owners of e-scooters have insurance, including third-party insurance, especially if/when they are able to ride their e-scooter on public roads and in public areas.
• The Federal Government should ensure the Australian Road Rules are periodically updated to respond to developments in how e-mobility devices like e-scooters are made (including any new technology which improves their power and performance) and how these devices are used.
• Any remaining loopholes for those injured on bikes/e-bikes as compared with e-scooters should be closed.

CFD v AAI Limited t/as AAMI [2023] NSWPIC 592

R v Fortuna [2024] NSWDC 328

Please email Elenore Levi, ALA Policy and Advocacy Manager, at elenore@lawyersalliance.com.au with any cases or determinations made concerning e-scooters and related devices.