Hospitalizations among children and adults riding e-scooters have risen by almost 40 per cent in the last year, according to new data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
There were 837 hospitalizations for e-scooter injuries between April 2025 and March 2026, an increase from 601 in the same period the previous year, data released Tuesday states.
Head and brain injuries and fractures were among the most common reasons e-scooter riders were hospitalized.
“I’m not remotely surprised at the numbers,” said Daniel Rosenfield, a pediatric emergency physician at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and chair of the injury prevention committee for the Canadian Pediatric Society.
“For whatever reason, we’ve seen a real tipping point this past summer of just the prevalence of people using these devices.”
Data showed the number of kids 15 years of age and under hospitalized for e-scooter injuries jumped from 54 youth in 2024-25 to 150 in 2025-26. Among those injured in 2025-26, 122 were boys and 28 were girls.
“It is indeed quite sobering that specifically young teen and preteen boys are the highest jump in morbidity and injury,” Rosenfield said.
Among those aged 16-30, 129 people were hospitalized in 2024-25, compared with 153 in 2025-26.
The reason for the vast difference in hospitalizations stems from the availability of e-scooters, Rosenfield says.
“There are more of these devices out there. So, the more kids and teens that are using them, the more of them that are going to get injured,” he said.
“And as a result, the more people that are on them, the more injuries we’re going to see.”
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Michael Terner, manager for hospital data management at CIHI, also said it is “not surprising” to see these trends in “large urban areas.”
In 2025-26, 544 people were hospitalized for “fractures and major joint/musculoskeletal injuries” as a result of falling off an e-scooter, accounting for 65 per cent of reported injuries.
Head and brain injuries accounted for 18.8 per cent of injuries at 157.
These are numbers that have continuously increased throughout the years, according to Terner.
“So just that number went up by nearly three-quarters in the last year.”
A report by the Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program (CPSP) states that 10 Canadian youths died from injuries sustained during both e-scooter and e-bike use in 2025.
Youth aged 10 to 15 were 42 per cent of the cases reported by pediatricians or emergency physicians, with 18 per cent among those five to nine years old. According to the data, the average age for incidents was 10 to 12.
Among the most common injuries found in the CPSP’s data were to the head at 47 per cent and limbs at 40 per cent.
In addition, data from July 2026 from CIHI states that last year saw a 22 per cent spike in hospitalizations from e-scooter injuries across the country.
Between 2024 and 2025, 18 kids up to the age of four suffered injuries related to riding e-scooters, as did 241 between the ages of five and 17, data from CIHI stated.
More than 1,000 Canadians were also hospitalized due to e-scooter-related injuries that year.
A 2022 study from Statistics Canada also noted that the highest number of e-scooter incidents “occur during the summer months … coinciding with the warmer months of the Canadian climate.”
Nova Scotia is planning to prohibit children under 14 from riding e-bikes and e-scooters, which is part of a slate of changes that will be made to the province’s Traffic Safety Act this fall, Public Works Minister Fred Tilley said on Aug. 6.
“The technology on bicycles and cars is changing on the daily, which allows these conveyances to move faster,” Tilley said at the time. “You start to get into a different level of conveyance than a traditional bicycle or cycle.”
P.E.I., Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. also have age restrictions in place for e-bikes and e-scooters.
— with files from Katherine Ward
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