John MacDonald: Queensland's answer to NZ's e-scooter problem

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2026, 12:25pm

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You know how we’ve been saying for ages how much of a problem e-scooters, in particular, are?

How we’ve been saying for ages that, in the wrong hands, they’re death traps? How we’ve said all that, but we’ve done absolutely nothing about it?

I reckon we need to be looking at what they’re doing over in Queensland right now. And I think we should do the same.

Because, as of this week, Queensland is the first state in Australia - and one of the very, very few jurisdictions anywhere in the world - to set age limits and licensing requirements for e-bike and e-scooter riders.

Which is a brilliant move.

As of this week, in Queensland, anyone wanting to ride an e-scooter or e-bike on their own needs to be 16 and, at the very least, have a learners driver’s licence.

As of this week, in Queensland, there is a new speed limit for e-scooters - 12 kilometres per hour near pedestrians.

And because people will now need at least their learners licence to use these things in public, the police in Queensland have a lot more power to intervene when someone’s being a muppet.

So, when they’re breaking the speed limit, the cops can now stop them and fine them.

If they’re under-16 or if they don’t have a licence, the cops can ping them.

If they’re riding an e-scooter or an e-bike drunk, they can be done for it.

What’s more, the parents of any kids in Queensland caught breaking these new rules can be fined.

They’re doing this over there because people have had a gutsful of e-scooters, e-bikes and those electric dirt bikes.

But we have too, haven’t we? And we’re not imagining how much of a problem they’ve become. Especially the e-scooters.

Between 2022 and January this year, ACC claims for e-scooter crashes totalled $49,580,000. On average, that’s $12.5 million a year.

What you don’t get from those figures is the ongoing consequences of those injuries.

The numbers show too why what Australia is doing with its age limit makes sense and why we need to do the same here.

Over the last two years, there have been 3,090 e-scooter ACC claims from teenagers. Last year, here in New Zealand, 10-to-19-year-olds were the most crash-prone e-scooter riders.

You might have noticed that I said crash-prone, not accident-prone. Because most e-scooter injuries are avoidable. They’re not accidents.

That’s because of the way people use these things. Especially, the hire scooters.

Which, by the way, do require people to verify that they’re over 18 before using them. But we know that a lot of kids just use their parents' details to get around that.

Besides which, putting it on the scooter operators makes no sense. Which is why I think it would be an absolutely no-brainer to do what they’re doing in Queensland.

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