There's an electric scooter accident serious enough to warrant hospital every other day on average, according to figures from the ACT government.
But the ACT government is to toughen the law so police can stop riders they think are over the alcohol limit.
Since Canberra's scheme for shared e-scooters started last year, there have been 170 hospital admissions for accidents involving "pedestrian conveyances". That amounts to 17 a month to the end of June, the last month when figures were available.
The "pedestrian conveyance" category does include skate-boards and roller-blades as well as scooters (but not pedal bikes) but the assumption is that most of the hospital admissions came from the newly-introduced scooters.
There were 32 accidents serious enough to be reported to the police as "crashes".
The ACT government intends to tighten the law. "E-scooters and bikes should not be seen as an alternative to driving for people who are intoxicated or under the influence of drugs," according to Transport Minister Chris Steele who introduced the legislation at the assembly.
This means that the scooter will not be an acceptable means of transport home from a heavy night out.
On an average day, there are nearly 4000 e-scooter rides in the ACT, according to the territory government.
It is not known how many of the casualties at Canberra or Calvary public hospitals were riders or pedestrians. Data for private hospitals were not available.
Nor is it known how many injured people were wearing a helmet as the regulations require. Research in other cities indicates that e-scooter riders are far less likely to wear helmets than cyclists are.
"It's clear that the government needs to do more to make sure that both riders and pedestrians can get around our city safely," the opposition Transport Minister Mark Parton said.
The Liberals in the ACT Assembly said they had raised concerns about safety "but the government are still dragging their feet".
"We've already seen a lot of e-scooter injuries in the ACT, and even deaths in other cities around the world," Mr Parton said.
The government said it wasn't clear that all the casualties were victims of e-scooters. It has mounted safety publicly campaigns.
Privately owned e-scooters have been legal in Canberra since December, 2019. "The commencement of shared schemes in September, 2020 has seen a massive uptake in ridership," a spokesperson for the ACT government said.
In the ten months of the shared scooter scheme up to the end of June, "Canberrans have taken a total of 1,160,832 e-scooter rides", the government reported. An average day saw 3828 trips on the shared scooters.
A study in Auckland compared e-scooter accidents with those involving non-motor bikes. Cyclists seemed more likely to obey the law. Only ten per cent of scooter riders were wearing protective gear at the time of their accident compared with 79 per cent of cyclists.
Of those who were tested for alcohol after being admitted to hospital, 48 per cent of e-scooter riders had some booze in their system compared with 15 per cent of cyclists in accidents.
The author of the New Zealand study, Matthew McGuinness, said the findings were a wake-up call that more safety measures were needed.
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