Lisa Jarvis: The e-scooter boom is putting kids at risk

The stories would stop any parent cold: Florida middle schooler Colton Remsburg, who was killed by a pickup truck while out buying flowers for his mom. California 13-year-old Angel Roman Mendoza Lopez, struck by a car while headed to a friend's house. And 15-year-old Violet Harris, an honors student from Chicago, who died after being hit by a car whose driver fled.

All three were riding e-scooters, and are part of a growing number of tweens and teens in the U.S. sustaining serious injuries or even dying in accidents. Use of these vehicles has taken off before guardrails were put in place to keep kids safe - and that urgently needs to change.

Over the past five years, the number of children injured - often seriously - from e-scooters has risen dramatically. One recent study found that children accounted for more than 45% of all e-scooter injuries in the U.S. in 2024. Among those, nearly 40% were between the ages of 11 and 14. Injuries from e-bikes, which have skyrocketed in popularity alongside e-scooters, have also risen sharply, with one recent study finding kids were coming into the hospital with fractures and breaks similar to those sustained in high-speed car accidents.

I spoke with several doctors who work in the emergency rooms of children's hospitals, and they all said the situation has gotten worse over the past year. "At least every other trauma alert that we get from EMS is a kid that was on an e-bike or e-scooter," says a Florida-based pediatric emergency room doctor who creates medical content under the name Dr. Beachgem. "We're seeing really, really dramatically injured children."

With permission from her patients and their parents, she's used her large social media platform to raise the alarm about the injuries she's seeing, including complex fractures, damage to internal organs and even brain injuries.

Micromobility devices, including e-bikes and e-scooters, are popular for a reason. Even the slower ones more commonly used by teens can reach up to 28 miles per hour, and high-powered e-scooters can go much faster. Regardless of speed, they offer an environmentally friendly, efficient way to get around, and are especially convenient in areas where public transportation is lacking.

But for young people, the stakes of a crash with an e-scooter (or, for that matter, e-bike) are so much higher.

When a teen falls off their bike, they might get a few scrapes or even wind up with a wrist fracture that lands them in the ER, says Kristine Cieslak, a pediatric emergency medicine doctor in Chicago, where this year already three teens have died on e-bikes or e-scooters. But electric micromobility devices are much heavier than their conventional counterparts - and go much faster.

Moreover, kids riding them in traffic often have yet to take a driver's ed class, and haven't developed the dexterity and judgment to navigate the roads. I see that in action almost daily in Chicago, where I live. Young teens and tweens, sometimes piled two or three on an e-scooter, cruise through busy intersections, blow through stop signs, and head the wrong way on one-way streets - nearly always without a helmet.

Things can go wrong in a heartbeat. There's the obvious worry about collisions with fast-moving cars or even stationary objects like street signs or walls. But e-scooters also can get sidelined by debris in the road. "When you are coming to a quick stop - if you hit a small rock in the road, or a crack in the sidewalk or a reflector - and you are thrown forward, you are now taking all of that energy, that 20 to 28 miles an hour, and hitting the ground, or your stomach is hitting the scooter, or your face is hitting the ground," says Dr. Beachgem.

Sarah Jensen's 15-year-old daughter Lucy experienced that firsthand in April, when she was riding a friend's e-scooter - thankfully while wearing a helmet - and ran over one of the small blue raised road reflectors that help firefighters identify a nearby hydrant. The scooter flew out from under her, and Lucy landed on top of it with so much force that she lacerated her liver.

Fortunately, the liver is one of those miraculous organs that can mend itself over time. But it's a serious injury, and Lucy's recovery has been long and challenging. She initially spent over a week in a trauma center in Portland, Oregon, and missed a month of her freshman year of high school. "It's just been a life-changing event," Jensen says. "It takes half a second and something as small as a three-inch square little tiny reflector on the road to get hurt like this."

So how do we make sure fewer teens go through what Lucy endured - or worse? Like with past public health threats that make themselves known first in emergency rooms, the way forward requires a collaborative effort between parents, doctors, schools and lawmakers.

Currently, state policies on children and e-scooters are all over the place. The most extreme, Pennsylvania, makes it illegal for people of any age to ride (but not own) an e-scooter. Others mandate a driver's license or set limits such as a maximum speed.

Given the rise in injuries, some states are crafting tougher laws intended to keep kids safer.

Ideally all of those policies would set a minimum age of 16, require helmets, and mandate some basic road safety training before a teen can head out into traffic. That's a place where schools can play a role, too. E-bike and e-scooter safety could be added to existing driver's ed classes. (And it would help encourage compliance if high schools made sure teens have a spot to store their helmets.)

All that support would ultimately help parents, who are on the front lines of this public health problem. Policy gives them a ready-made excuse: It's not just my dumb rule that you can't get on that e-scooter, it's the law.

As these tragic stories of teens dying or being seriously harmed trickle out, they will hopefully raise awareness among parents, too many of whom seem unaware of the severity of injuries that can occur. Doctors told me parents often come into the ER with their child in shock that such harm could have happened on their watch.

Last month, Lucy put a post up on Instagram warning her friends of how quickly a fun ride can turn dangerous. "I cannot put the pain I had into words," she wrote, describing the aftermath of her accident. She was moved to speak out because she'd seen so many kids riding e-bikes or e-scooters without a helmet, some on their phones, and it worried her. "I am by no means telling anyone what to do. I just want everyone to be safe."

That teen-to-teen talk is so needed. I hope parents and policymakers hear Lucy's important message, too.

____

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published June 21, 2026 at 3:05 AM.