Alfred Health, Monash University study finds dramatic spike in e-scooter injuries

Risk-taking e-scooter riders are suffering horror, life-changing injuries and health experts say urgent changes are needed to stem the trauma.

Health experts are urging e-scooter riders to wear their helmet after a soaring number of admissions to Victorian emergency departments. Picture: Ian Currie

Serious injuries to drunk or drug-affected riders on e-scooters are soaring in Victoria, with a new report finding mature men the most likely to end up in hospital.

Specialists at The Alfred, the country’s busiest adult trauma centre, are now calling for urgent preventive measures that focus on reducing alcohol and other drug use by riders and also promotes wearing a helmet.

The two, say emergency physician Biswadev Mitra, are the leading reasons Victorians suffer potentially life-changing e-scooter injuries.

A new study by Alfred Health and Monash University led by Professor Mitra reports a dramatic spike in presentations with injuries ranging from broken bones to spinal damage and traumatic injury to the brain.

The study looked at data of 272 patients who were admitted to The Alfred in Melbourne with e-scooter injuries between January 2017 and May 2022.

Disturbingly, the study published last month in Emergency Medicine Australasia, highlighted that the number of Victorians injured on e-scooters is increasing every year.

In 2021 Alfred Health saw 93 people with injuries following a crash involving an e-scooter, which was triple the number of 2020.

Men aged 25 to 50 were more likely to be involved in e-scooter crashes. Picture: Ian Currie

In just the first five months of 2022 alone there were 132 presentations to the hospital.

The team found one in five who ended up in the hospital’s emergency department were not wearing a helmet, and was strongly associated with traumatic and life-changing brain injury.

The team also found those most injured were men aged between 25-50 years, who were almost five times more likely than women to ride an e-scooter after consuming alcohol or drugs without wearing a helmet.

The study reported 37 people needed surgery, 83 had fractures of the arms or legs and more than one in 10 needed to stay in hospital for longer than a day.

Professor Mitra believes this is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Our study was of people who were injured enough that they needed to come to the emergency department,” he said. “We think this is a much bigger problem.”

“Almost a quarter of all those admitted had alcohol or drug exposure, which is an incredibly high number and an issue that needs to be urgently addressed,” Prof Mitra said.

“These are motorised vehicles and need to be treated with the same respect and safety measures we have for all other motor vehicles.”

Prof Mitra said those who do fall from an e-scooter at high speed and hit concrete will likely suffer life changing events.

“It is not something we can easily fix, and there may be brain damage which means those riders almost never go back to normal. They can end up with some form of permanent disability.”

Monash University’s Sustainable Mobility and Safety Research unit at the School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine is now undertaking a larger study to better understand the true impact of e-scooter injury in Victoria.

Almost one quarter of people admitted to the emergency department were under the influence. Picture: Ian Currie

“I think electric scooters are great,” Prof Mitra said.

“They are good for the environment, they get people around, but as with all mobility devices we do need some more governance around safety.

“Motorists get tested for drink driving, but there appears nothing for these riders.”

Prof Mitra says it is hard enough keeping balance on two wheels when you are perfectly fine.

“If you have had alcohol or other drugs, an e-scooter is not the plan B to get home.”

The eye-opening findings come as police are kept busy over summer by riders flouting the rules in big numbers.

Between 1 December 2021 and 31 December 2022, police issued 865 e-scooter infringements.

The bulk of those are made up by failure to wear a helmet (219), riding on the footpath (294) and carrying more than one person on-board (143).

In that same time period, police recorded 33 collisions and impounded 15 privately-owned scooters, which remain banned on public roads, bike lanes and footpaths.

A man died last September in Pascoe Vale after losing control over a speed bump, while there was an earlier fatality in February with a rider who collided with a car in Narre Warren.

Police said they could not comment on research from The Alfred but a spokesperson warned the same drink and drug-driving penalties that apply to motorists also apply to e-scooter riders.

“Meaning you can lose your driver’s licence if you are caught over the limit on an e-scooter,” a spokesperson said.

“Privately-owned e-scooters that are over 200 watts or can travel at more than 10km/h are classified as motor vehicles and subject to the same requirements, including licensing, registration, road rules, drink and drug driving laws, and safety standards.”

219 people have been fined in the last year for not wearing a helmet while riding an e-scooter. Picture: Ian Currie

A Melbourne story

It’s a weeknight in Melbourne and electric scooters are abuzz.

Riders, some flying solo, others squeezing on deck with friends, scoot around the city streets for midweek shenanigans and late-night dinner pick-ups.

They turn ahead of trams, curl around cars, whiz by walkers and slip past cyclists.

But rarely are they wearing helmets.

The overt flouting of rules around the CBD is epitomised when one man, helmet-less and Hungry Jacks feed in hand, rides next to a law-abiding bike rider without regard for his own head safety.

He sports a Dallas Mavericks T-shirt and is one of the many e-scooter mavericks spotted around the city on a Wednesday night in a short window of time.

In only an hour, 12 riders on nine e-scooters are seen defying laws around their use.

One man scrolls through his phone while he rides down the street.

Three move down the tram tracks, with two of them squeezed onto one scooter.

A police vehicle then drives right by the trio, but they aren’t pulled over.

Some people were spotted texting while using an e-scooter. Picture: Ian Currie

That’s despite 219 infringements being issued for failure to wear a helmet, and 143 for riding with another person, between December 1 2021 and December 31 2022.

On Thursday night, riders are still out in force despite the inclement weather.

It’s 11 degrees and raining in February, but half-a-dozen rule breakers still beam around the streets in another one-hour time window.

It seems they are now as Melbourne as the dramatic weather change.

One man is spotted riding next to a tram without a helmet on, another grins widely as he zooms down the footpath.

A third man is both on a phone call and on the footpath simultaneously.

It comes as new reports out of The Alfred shed light on a concerning spike in broken bones and brain trauma courtesy of e-scooter collisions.

And if Wednesday and Thursday nights’ activities are any measure, the emergency department could have more busy nights ahead.

— Owen Leonard