Law enforcement officials in southwestern Ontario are speaking out about severe road safety hazards after dashcam footage emerged showing an individual operating an electric kick-scooter directly alongside high-speed traffic on a regional expressway.
The video, which circulated widely on social media and was subsequently shared by the Waterloo Regional Police Service, captures an e-scooter rider entering Highway 7/8 (known locally as the Conestoga Expressway) via the Ottawa Street North on-ramp in Kitchener. The footage documents the operator moving across multiple lanes of active traffic, keeping pace with full-sized passenger vehicles and commercial trucks before nearing the highway's highway split.
Following the circulation of the clip, authorities are reminding the public that personal micromobility devices are heavily restricted under provincial frameworks.
While Ontario's ongoing provincial e-scooter pilot framework permits participating municipalities to regulate the use of the devices on select local streets, the rules explicitly ban them from controlled-access highways. This restriction covers major expressways, the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), and all 400-series routes.
Furthermore, the provincial regulations cap the legal design speed of approved e-scooters at 24 km/h—a fraction of the speeds routinely traveled on regional multi-lane corridors.
Investigators emphasize that piloting an unshielded, low-speed vehicle in an environment engineered for heavy, fast-moving traffic introduces extreme, life-threatening danger. Because expressways lack physical buffers for non-traditional vehicles, riders have virtually no margin for error.
"At high speeds, riders have little time to react to vehicles, children, animals, or other unexpected hazards," police stated in a public advisory regarding the incident. "One wrong move could have devastating consequences. E-scooters are not toys."
Although the expressway corridor where the footage was recorded falls under the primary patrol jurisdiction of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), local municipal services continue to stress compliance. Violations of Ontario's e-scooter regulations—ranging from riding on unauthorized high-speed roadways to exceeding design parameters or failing to wear a helmet—carry financial penalties spanning from $250 to $2,500.