An audit of presentations to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in 2021 showed about 1.5 patients arriving with e-scooter-related injuries every day. Twenty-five per cent involved alcohol, 71 per cent were male and 10 per cent were not wearing a helmet.
Personally, I would hate to see e-scooters banned on the back of the minority that use them irresponsibly. I think they’re fun, practical and a good way to get around the city.
But I do think we could make them safer for users and pedestrians. Brisbane could follow France and Germany’s lead and lower the overall speed limit to 20 km/h. First-time users should have to watch a demonstration video and complete safety modules before riding.
Maybe they should be banned in pedestrian-heavy areas of the CBD or fitted with technology to prevent illegal riding and ensure helmets are actually being worn.
Personally, I’d like to see a bigger emphasis on the ebike hires than escooters. They’re just as fun, potentially much faster (equal uphill, faster downhill, and potentially faster on the flat if you’ve got good legs), and most importantly: much, much safer for their riders.
don’t need that much roads or heavy bridges, dont need 2 tons of metal 😍
i suspect bikes would injure just as much if people who dont ride them otherwise will use them at 30 kmh outside of bikelanes
The big difference is in stability. Scooters are insanely unstable compared to bikes, for complicated reasons I don’t fully understand, but I think have something to do with where the centre of gravity is, and how the geometry of the forks help force them into self-righting.
The danger scooters provide to their own riders is much higher than bikes. And because of this, I suspect riders are forced to spend a lot more attention on that, which means they have less attention to spare and are more likely to endanger others.
Would they? Riding bikes is taught quite early on in most kids lives, and the bigger wheels and more room for suspension makes me inclined to believe that there’s less chance of being thrown off an ebike because of a shitty footpath or bad turn, at least for a basic commuter type bike. You’ve also got to be putting some effort in to get over 20km/h, ebike throttles are supposed to be limited to walking speed. I dont have firsthand experience with escooters, though, so theres a chance I may be missing something here.
Ebikes can’t have throttles, pedal assist only, in Qld.
The pedal assist can be in effect up to 25 km/h, the same as the escooter speed limit.
Over 20 km/h on a push bike is very easy. In fact I’d call 20 the hard minimum, and on a downhill especially it’s actually quite awkward to go slower than that. On the flat with no wind I’d be calling about 24 km/h a comfortable standard speed for a slow rider. More like 30 as a basic comfortable cruising speed for a strong rider.
What you say about wheels and escooter safety is basically correct though, to my knowledge.
You’ve also got to be putting some effort in to get over 20km/h
i ride regular bikes and an ebike and while getting to the 25km/h cutoff on the ebike is easy thanks to the assist, going much faster is very much harder as the bike itself is incredibly heavy (compared to a normal bike), so cruising along at 20-25km is both comfortable and easy, plus safe. as cool as it would be to be able to go faster with motor assist, idiots would ruin it
Was in New Zealand for a short holiday last year and I hired one of those e-scooters for about an hour. Very convenient and fun. Most of the users there were quite well behaved too. I think discouraging anti-social behavior in users here will go a long way in making ebikes and escooters accepted by the community and councils.
