A spike in e-scooter related hospitalizations has a national charity dedicated to injury prevention speaking out.
Stephanie Cowle, Director of Knowledge Translation at Parachute Canada, says unfortunately it's not a surprise to see some of the injury numbers from these scooters.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says e-scooter injuries are on the rise across the country, with a 32 per cent spike in hospitalizations in Canada over a one-year period.
Hospitalizations from e-scooter injuries went from 375 recorded in 2022-2023 to 498 in 2023-2024.
The data, released Thursday, said adult men made up the largest group of hospitalizations - rising 22 per cent over that year. Hospitalizations for kids between five and 17-years-old increased 61 per cent from 33 to 53 in that time period.
Cowle says while the e-scooters are fast, they're not a great method of transportation.
"We would love to see - children especially - continuing with some of these old school active transport modes, like a bicycle, like a kick scooter, until they're a little bit older, have skills that will help them manage these a little bit more safely."
She says parents should do research before buying these for their kids.
"You have physicians and credible voices that are recommending against this for children. But then look at the data, right, we're seeing quite serious injuries, head injuries are quite prominent, injuries to lots of different parts of the body, very serious injuries. They seem harmless, but really encourage parents to look into this."
Cowle says no one thinks an accident will happen to them.
"It only take one incident. And speed is such a big factor, and not only the speeds that the e-scooters are going, but also if they are around vehicles, speeds that vehicles are going. And so when those two come into contact with each other, it's really not a great picture."
The data shows the majority of e-scooter hospitalizations happened in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia.
Among cases where the information is available, 80 per cent of the riders who end up in the ER aren't wearing helmets.
-with files from AM800's Live and Local with Kyle Horner