Medical professionals across Canada are sounding the alarm following the release of striking new data that reveals a steep and alarming rise in severe trauma cases and fatalities among children and teenagers using personal electric micromobility devices.
According to a comprehensive annual report from the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program (CPSP) produced jointly by the Canadian Paediatric Society and the Public Health Agency of Canada, 10 children under the age of 18 died from incidents involving e-scooters and e-bikes. Six of those fatalities occurred in Ontario alone.
The data, compiled from a national survey of hundreds of pediatric specialists, documents a total of 57 severe pediatric injuries from the previous year that resulted in extended hospital stays, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, or death. Specifically, the figures include 12 ICU admissions and 26 hospitalizations that lasted longer than two days.
Emergency physicians say the numbers mirror a relentless, exponential increase in trauma cases arriving at hospitals over the last few years.
Dr. Daniel Rosenfield, a pediatric emergency physician at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and chair of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Injury Prevention Committee, notes that e-scooter trauma has become an everyday reality in emergency departments.
"I think we've just hit a tipping point where the availability and, frankly, popularity of these devices has just eclipsed what we've ever seen before," Rosenfield said. Previous data trends from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) illustrate the swift escalation, showing that e-scooter hospitalizations for children aged five to 17 jumped from 33 in the 2022–23 period to 53 between 2023 and 2024, before climbing further into subsequent years.
Among the most concerning trends in the data is the heavy toll exacted on young riders' heads and brains. The CPSP report highlights that approximately 47 per cent of the severe injuries recorded were head trauma. Limb injuries followed closely behind, accounting for 40 per cent of cases.
Medical experts emphasize that a vast majority of these catastrophic head injuries happen because riders are operating the high-speed devices without helmets.
"The majority of severely injured people are due to head injuries, and remember these aren't injuries that you can walk away from. These people will often have a permanent disability," Rosenfield cautioned.
While the average age for these incidents centers around 10 to 12 years old, the data reveals that children and teens aged 10 to 15 make up 42 per cent of reported cases, with younger children aged five to nine accounting for another 18 per cent. Most provincial regulations dictate that riders must be at least 16 years old to legally operate e-scooters, yet nearly 80 per cent of the severe cases involve children younger than the legal threshold.
In response to the growing crisis, municipalities and provinces are beginning to tighten restrictions. Jurisdictions like Nova Scotia have implemented strict age limits, banning children under 14 from operating e-bikes and e-scooters while urban police services across the country have launched targeted safety and compliance enforcement campaigns, issuing hundreds of fines and warnings for illegal street riding and failure to wear protective gear.
Despite these measures, health advocates stress that legislation alone is not enough. Experts are urging parents, communities, and policymakers to recognize that personal electric vehicles are high-speed transit tools rather than simple toys, emphasizing that mandatory helmet use and strict adherence to age restrictions are vital to curbing life-altering tragedies.