A new report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) suggests that hospitalizations associated with electric scooter (e-scooter) are revealed in the whole of Canada, and with children, adolescents and women, seeing the most significant increase in injuries.
According to data released on Thursday, between 2022 and 2024, children and youth between the ages of 5 to 17 increased by 61 percent. During the same period, injuries in women increased by 60 percent, while men hospitalized increased by 18 and 64 in men by 22 percent.
Data also indicates that most of the e-scooter-related hospital entry occurred in four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and the most densely populated area of the British-country, where e-scooter uses are more common.
An emergency doctor at the Sikkids Hospital in Toronto. Daniel Rosenfield, tells Canadian press In the last five years, the increase in injuries in children and adolescence has been increasing continuously. Some of these incidents have become serious.
He said, “We see anything from minor scraps and cuts and little lectures that need to be put in some stitches … painful brain injury, chest and abdominal internal bleeding, open fractures that need to go to the operating room,” he said.
Rosenfield believes that the increase in injuries is correlated with the growing popularity and ability of e-scooters as well as their potential dangers.
He said that while some children between the ages of four to six were injured while riding with their parents, it is more common for the teenager to be injured, while riding alone, often without helmets or protective gear.
“Their acceleration and torque are tremendous. And most of the parents, when they are buying these things for their children, are completely unaware.”
In Ontario, the rider should be at least 16 years old. But in Toronto, e-scooters are not allowed on public roads or routes. And in the east of the city in Oshwa, they are allowed under a pilot program.
With files from Canadian press