Why this speech pathologist is quietly relieved about Queensland’s new e-scooter rules!

As of the first of July, children under 16 can no longer legally ride e-scooters and e-bikes on Queensland roads and paths. In our house (four children, one very persuasive twelve-year-old) this has not been a universally popular development. But as a speech pathologist who works with brain injury, I'll be honest: I'm relieved!!

Here's why. Last year in Queensland alone, more than 6,300 people were injured and 12 people died in e-mobility incidents. The body part most likely to be injured on an e-scooter? The head. And injuries among children aged two to fourteen quadrupled in just three years from 64 cases in 2022 to 263 in 2025. Those numbers are the reason the law changed.

I see the part of this story that doesn't make the news. Weeks and months after a 'lucky escape', I meet the young people who can't concentrate in class anymore, who lose the thread of conversations with friends, who are exhausted by lunchtime, whose reading has gone backwards. A developing brain that's still learning language and social skills has the most to lose from an injury and adolescent brains are developing until well into the twenties.

This isn't an anti-fun post. Bikes, scooters, skateboards, trees, childhood carries risk, and it should. We had three members of our six member household in slings and on crutches last year. But e-scooters are different in one specific way: speed without skill. A conventional bike requires a child to earn their speed with their legs; an e-scooter hands 25 km/h to anyone tall enough to reach the handlebars, no experience required. Combine that with a still-developing sense of hazard, and you get exactly the injury statistics Queensland recorded.

So what can families do? Follow the new rules, they exist because the injury data demanded it. For older teens who can legally ride: a helmet every single time (most serious e-scooter head injuries involve no helmet), one rider per device, and a genuine conversation about speed. And if your child has already had a knock (even a 'mild' one) and something seems off weeks later, concentration, memory, mood, schoolwork, conversation, trust your instincts and see your GP. Lingering symptoms are real and they're treatable, and that's a story for another post.

Dr Anna Copley is a Brisbane speech pathologist with a PhD in brain injury, and a mum of four who has confiscated her fair share of wheeled objects.

Sources: UNSW e-scooter injury study (unsw.edu.au, June 2026) and Queensland Government StreetSmarts e-mobility rules page.