If he’d been hit, the injuries could have been severe, as Schroeder, who is a pediatrician and research scientist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, well knows. More children are getting hurt or even dying in crashes involving electric devices like e-bikes and e-scooters.
Injuries from e-bikes showed a roughly 400% relative increase during the study period, and e-scooter injuries rose almost 200%. The team also found that severe injuries—the kind that need surgery or time in the intensive care unit—were about twice as likely when a powered vehicle like an e-bike or e-scooter was involved, compared to regular bikes and scooters.
What are e-scooters and e-bikes?
Similar to a kick scooter, e-scooters are stand-up, two-wheeled devices that have a powered front wheel operated by a throttle. E-bikes in the U.S. are classified as bicycles with working pedals that have a battery-powered assist, enabling riders to go up hills and achieve greater speeds with less effort. Some have hand-operated throttles so that a rider doesn’t even need to use the pedals. Laws about e-bikes vary by state, with some mandating that the fastest class of e-bikes, which top out at 28 m.p.h., can only be operated by those 16 years old and up, but you don’t need a license or training. In some states, wearing a helmet is legally required, but not in others.
E-motos, also called electric motorcycles or electric dirt bikes, may be capable of speeds exceeding 60 m.p.h. Regulation is patchy so far, but in California, if these are intended for use on public roads and not just private property, these are classed as motorcycles—meaning that they must be registered and equipped with a license plate, riders must be licensed to drive them and purchase motor vehicle insurance, and people under 16 are not able to get licenses.
As part of her own research to understand exactly what electric devices kids are using these days, Panda tours local high school parking lots on what she calls “bicycle counts,” marking down what’s on the bike racks. E-motos tend to “have that banana seat that motorcycles have,” Panda says, while e-bikes usually do not.
E-bikes and scooters are particularly dangerous for this age group because often, children lack the strength and coordination to pilot these vehicles safely, and sometimes they don’t wear helmets. And it’s not just teens who are using them. “A significant proportion of these injuries are actually in kids younger than the age of 12,” says Chao—a detail from the new study that surprised even the researchers. “A lot of times we think, ‘Oh, this is an older, teenage-type thing,’ but it's not. You're talking about really young middle-school children who really don't have frontal lobe development to be on these really fast motorized vehicles.”
The injuries doctors are seeing are largely a result of that speed. “You're not just falling off a bike and maybe breaking an arm. What we're talking about is potentially serious life-threatening injuries now, serious brain injuries” says Chao. “We're talking about middle-school kids whose parents have bought them these bikes.”
What should be done?
Banning e-bikes and e-scooters outright is likely unrealistic, but there’s plenty of room for common-sense limits, the researchers say.
Schroeder and Chao both stress the importance of not giving children access to these devices without a serious conversation. Some health care groups have begun to release guidance sheets to help steer these chats. “Before we allow our children to be on these bikes or e-scooters, families really need to sit down together,” says Chao, and discuss safety and responsibility that need to come with using these devices.
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