What age can children legally ride e-scooters in Australia?

Rules vary by state. In Queensland (from 31 August 2026), unsupervised public riding requires being 16 or older and holding at least a Queensland learner licence — children aged 12–17 can still ride under direct parental supervision. New South Wales restricts private e-scooters to private property and designated paths. Most other states have no minimum age for e-bikes. Always check your state's current transport rules before allowing unsupervised riding.

What are the most common e-scooter injuries?

Fractures make up about 58% of hospitalised e-scooter injuries. Head injuries, concussions, and cervical spine injuries are common and may have long-term consequences. Internal organ injuries accounted for roughly 2% of hospitalisations in 2024–25 — about four times the rate recorded in 2015–16. ICU admission rates have risen sharply over the same period.

E-scooter hospitalisations tripled in 5 years: the AIHW numbers

If you have a child who uses an e-scooter — or if you use one yourself — there is a set of Australian data published this week that is worth looking at directly.

E-scooter hospitalisations in Australia reached 15 per 100,000 people in 2024–25, a tripling over five years. ICU admissions rose from 16 to 73. In-hospital deaths from e-scooter falls rose from seven to 20. Those numbers belong in the same conversation as helmets, age, and supervision.

What the AIHW data show

The data come from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s national hospital morbidity analysis, reviewed this week by the AMA Queensland as part of a formal call for stronger regulation.

The injury picture is not spread evenly across the population. Children aged 12–15 had the highest hospitalisation rate of any group — 54 per 100,000 in 2024–25, roughly 15 times their 2019–20 rate. Boys were four times as likely as girls to be hospitalised in that age group. This is not a small signal. It is the most concentrated risk in the entire national dataset.

The adult picture is less extreme but still meaningful. Most injuries occur on streets and highways — nearly half of all e-scooter injuries with a recorded location, more than double the 2015–16 share. Fractures account for about 58% of hospitalised e-scooter injuries. Internal organ injuries, at about 2% of cases, are approximately four times more common now than in 2015–16. Head injuries and broken necks are frequent, and as AMA Queensland’s Dr Maria Boulton noted, “often have long-term effects.” 164 pedestrians were hospitalised after collisions with e-scooters — a figure that rarely gets mentioned in injury debates centred on riders.

What Queensland did — and what the early data show

Queensland introduced new laws on 31 August 2026: to ride an e-scooter unsupervised on public land, you must be at least 16 and hold a Queensland learner licence. Children aged 12–17 can still ride under direct parental supervision. Queensland is one of only two jurisdictions (with the ACT) that permit this supervised exception.

There is early evidence the rules have had an effect. Between July and September 2026, seven children were hospitalised for more than 24 hours after serious e-scooter or e-bike crashes — 18 fewer than in January to March. The AMA Queensland welcomed the drop but called the deaths preventable, and maintained its position: a full ban on under-16s rather than a licence-based restriction.

Most other states have no minimum age requirement for e-bikes. New South Wales restricts private e-scooter use to private property and designated paths, which may partly explain why it has the lowest hospitalisation rates for young people of any Australian state.

Both-and: what the data do and don’t settle

The case for tighter regulation is not just about individual accidents. It is about a data pattern: a specific age group, a specific surface type (streets rather than footpaths), specific timing (summer, Fridays), and a specific sex (males). That kind of pattern responds to regulation and infrastructure design, not only to individual caution.

At the same time, e-scooters are not uniformly dangerous for all users in all contexts. The risk that is genuinely alarming in this data is concentrated in children on roads, without supervision. Adult riders on dedicated cycling infrastructure face a meaningfully different profile.

The contested question is exactly where the regulatory line sits. The AMA Queensland draws it at 16 with a licence, pointing to evidence that even a few months of the Queensland rule change reduced serious child admissions. The Queensland government says the data are too early to draw conclusions and has committed to a review. Both positions are defensible from the same evidence base.

What is not contested: the risk for children aged 12–15 on roads, riding without supervision, is among the highest injury risks in current national transport data. That specific finding does not require a political view to act on.

2 cents: what this means for your family

If you have a child in the 12–15 age range who uses an e-scooter:

In Queensland, unsupervised public riding now requires a learner licence. Check whether your child is riding legally. If they are riding with supervision, helmet use is mandatory and matters — head injury is among the most consequential risks in this dataset.

In other states: the national data do not distinguish between supervised and unsupervised riding, but the pattern is clear enough that footpath use over roads, direct supervision, and helmet use are the levers you can pull regardless of what the law requires where you live.

If you use an e-scooter for commuting: stick to dedicated cycling infrastructure where available. The injury data are concentrated on roads shared with motor vehicles. Weekday commuting on a bike path looks very different from weekend riding on a highway.

If anyone in your care — child or adult — has had a head impact from an e-scooter, bicycle, or skateboard fall, see your GP even if they seem fine on the day. Concussion can present subtly and delayed assessment remains a common point of failure after head injuries.

Verdict: yes — worth knowing about.