The average trip last quarter was two kilometres long and lasted 12 minutes.
Council data has shown that 30 to 50 per cent of e-scooter and e-bike trips replace car trips in Brisbane.
But others loathe e-scooters, ans are frustrated by blocked pathways and dangerous behaviour.
About 1.5 patients arrived at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital every day with e-scooter injuries, including head injuries and broken bones, from January to March 2021, with at least 25 per cent involving alcohol and 10 per cent not wearing a helmet.
Almost two in five accidents occurred between 9pm and 5am, and 71 per cent involved male riders.
An October 2019 study of Brisbane users found two-thirds of shared e-scooter riders and 94 per cent of private riders wore helmets.
Paris – a tourist mecca and next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games host – banned rental e-scooters, amid concerns about injuries and deaths, while also removing on-street car parks and building hundreds of kilometres of bike lanes.
It remains illegal to ride private e-scooters outside private property in New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory, while the Gold Coast has shared e-bikes but not scooters.
But when the Olympics come to Brisbane in 2032, we want to make it easy for tourists for traverse our sprawling subtropical city, without hopping in a car and clogging roads, or getting worked into a sweaty lather.
A University of Queensland study found more than 80 per cent of visitors who used e-scooters agreed they enhanced their experience, increasing the number of places they could see, places that would be missed if they caught a taxi or Uber.
The answer lies in well-connected networks of off-road paths so e-scooter users and cyclists do not tangle with cars on roads or pedestrians on footpaths.
And rather than imposing heavy-handed bans, there should be more education and enforcement of safety measures, including the use of helmets, and not allowing drink-riding or doubling-up.
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