AODA Alliance
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities
Website: www.aodaalliance.org
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @aodaalliance
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/aodaalliance
E-Scooters Keep Causing Injuries but Have Police Responded Effectively?
October 13, 2025
SUMMARY
For more than six years, the AODA Alliance along with other disability advocates have been campaigning to protect vulnerable people with disabilities, seniors, children and others from the serious danger to safety and accessibility created by electric scooters. E-scooters are a silent menace ridden by uninsured, unlicensed, unhelmeted and untrained joy-riders racing at speeds as fast as 30 kph on Ontario roads, sidewalks, bike paths and other public places, typically with impunity.
We have faced an uphill battle. This is because the Ford Government has sidelined and marginalized these dangers, responding instead to the feeding frenzy of corporate lobbyists for e-scooter rental companies. So have the municipalities that have legalized their use, such as Ottawa. Here is the latest news. These news reports are set out below.
- The October 11, 2025 Toronto Star reported that e-scooters are causing a spike in personal injuries. We have been warning governments about this for the past four years, as did the staff of the City of Toronto.
- On August 25, 2025, City News reported that Toronto Police Services were undertaking a three-week safety campaign on micromobility devices like e-scooters. It included both education and enforcement. The campaign has now been over for a month. We are eager to know how many charges were laid and what penalties, if any, resulted.
- On August 16, 2025, CTV News reported on a collision that caused injuries to an e-scooter rider and a pedestrian.
- On September 14, 2025, CTV news reported that a woman was injured in a fire caused by an e-scooter.
This all proves that the Ford Government must substantially strengthen any regulations that permit e-scooters anywhere in Ontario, and that even where a city like Toronto has banned them, there is a pressing need for much more effective law enforcement.
How You Can Help
- Write a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star at lettertoed@thestar.ca to respond to the October 11, 2025 Star report on e-scooter injuries set out below. Explain why police must strictly enforce the ban on e-scooters.
- If you live in Ottawa, Mississauga, Hamilton or one of the other Ontario cities where e-scooters are allowed, contact your member of City Council. Tell them to ban e-scooters and to enforce the ban.
- Write your member of the Ontario Legislature. Tell them to ban e-scooters in Ontario and set stronger penalties for illegal e-riding.
- Take a long look at the six years of advocacy that we have conducted to protect vulnerable people with disabilities and others from the dangers that e-scooters create. Visit the AODA Alliance website’s e-scooters page.
- Do you want to learn how to do disability advocacy? Listen to the podcast: “Disability Rights and Wrongs – the David Lepodcast.” It is available on all the usual podcast platforms, such as Apple Music and Spotify.
MORE DETAILS
Toronto Star October 11, 2025
Originally posted at
E-scooter injuries up 600%, data shows
Increase from 2020 to 2024 inspires new research into road safety at St. Michael’s Hospital
Amarachi Amadike Toronto Star
E-scooters are illegal on Toronto roads, sidewalks, paths … practically everywhere but your driveway.
Despite this, many young children and teenagers continue to rely on them as their preferred mode of transportation. So much so, that it has led to a 22 per cent increase in hospitalizations from e-scooter injuries across the country, according to research undertaken by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
Dr. Steve Lin, an emergency physician and trauma team leader at St. Michael’s Hospital, said their research supports CIHI’s findings.
In a preliminary review of St. Michael’s Hospital data earlier this year, researchers reported a 600 per cent increase in e-scooter injuries between 2020 and 2024.
Their analysis, which examined data from the hospital’s trauma registry, also revealed a 240 per cent increase in the number of trauma cases related to e-bike injuries.
“We’re not capturing every single injury that we’re seeing,” Lin said. “But what we do have is information on those who have serious injuries that need to come in and be admitted to the hospital.”
St. Michael’s statistics show a steeper increase in incidents involving e-scooters, however, Lin highlighted that there have been significantly more e-bike accidents.
“I’m not sure if more people use e-bikes, but they definitely go at a faster speed,” said Lin.
With financial assistance from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s road safety research partnership program, St. Michael’s is now embarking on a new study to help improve car and road safety following the drastic increase in micromobility vehicle accidents.
“Our own experience in the emergency department … we’re seeing a lot of head injuries, facial injuries, long bone injuries,” said Lin. “The study itself is meant to really capture all those numbers and to look a bit deeper into why this is actually happening.”
According to Toronto Police Service (TPS), a general lack of awareness about what micromobility devices are legal to use is playing a role in the number of accidents.
Last week, a 10-year-old was rushed to the hospital after a colliding with a car as the driver opened the door.
Earlier that same day, a 12-year-old boy was also taken to hospital following an e-scooter collision in Scarborough.
Such incidents have made Toronto police increase their focus on the annual back-to-school campaign which aims to educate riders about road safety and what the rules are.
They’ve also merged the educational arm of their strategic response with enforcement, like the blitz that resulted in 179 tickets being issued to micromobility vehicle riders over a three-week period.
“These vehicles are becoming more and more popular on the road, especially among young people, which can lead to safety concerns that are even more heightened now that students are back in school,” Toronto police senior communications adviser Nadine Ramadan said in an email statement to the Star.
As of Sept. 24, officers have issued 1,138 tickets related to e-bike, e-scooter and bicycle users in 2025.
However, Lin said there needs to be more guidelines and enforcement.
“Helmet use should be necessary for everyone,” Lin emphasized. “That’s not negotiable … once you’re using these micromobility vehicles at very high speeds, they start moving away from being a recreational vehicle.”
Lin told the Star that the vast majority of people in emergency rooms as a result of e-bike and e-scooter accidents were not wearing helmets at the time of collision.
St. Michael’s hopes their three-phased approach to the new study will aid in reducing these numbers.
The first phase focuses on getting a general idea of the number of injuries that are happening in emergency departments around the city.
The second and third phases involve bringing together an action committee to better understand what people are thinking in terms of micromobility vehicle usage, and evaluating their findings which will then be passed on to policy makers.
Although the data is generally unclear, discourse surrounding collisions often villainizes e-scooter and e-bike riders. However, Lin said the new study will focus on key details in order to get the full picture.
“We’re also going to be interviewing new patients as well … to get a good understanding of how they got injured,” said Lin. “Because, currently, even in our charts, we don’t document to that detail. Did they slip? Did they hit a car door?”
One Toronto resident, however, believes Ontario’s government is to blame because they still allow the sale of e-scooters in many stores even though residents are banned from riding them.
“That’s so dumb, honestly,” said Paloma Vargas, who runs a babysitting business and is frequently around the Parliament and King street area – just south of where a 10-year-old boy was hit last week. “Just don’t let people sell them and that’s it.”
In 2020, Ontario introduced an e-scooter pilot program that follows a municipal opt-in model, “meaning e-scooters are only legal in municipalities that have passed a bylaw permitting their use,” according to Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s media relations officer Tanya Blazina.
“E-scooters may be used on private property with the prior permission of the property owner,”said Blazina, regarding Toronto’s bylaw. “But this does not override municipal restrictions on public roads or sidewalks.”
With the option to opt-out, Toronto councillors’ decided to prohibit the operation of e-scooters anywhere but on private property, leading to confusion surrounding the sale of the banned micromobility vehicle by Toronto retailers.
While riders have been experiencing increased scrutiny, Ramadan acknowledged that they are still “legal to purchase.”
Figure:
A man rides a scooter in 2023. Dr. Steve Lin, an emergency physician and trauma team leader at St. Michael’s Hospital, said that the vast majority of people in emergency rooms as a result of e-bike and e-scooter accidents were not wearing helmets at the time of collision. Richard Lautens/Toronto Star file photo
City News August 25, 2025
Originally posted at https://toronto.citynews.ca/2025/08/25/toronto-police-micromobility-vehicles-e-bikes-e-scooters/
Toronto police target e-scooters, e-bikes in new safety campaign
Toronto police are conducting a safety campaign targeting e-scooter and e-bike riders on knowing the rules of the roads.
By Lucas Casaletto
Toronto police have launched a three-week traffic safety campaign targeting micromobility vehicles across the city, aiming to educate riders and enforce road safety laws as students prepare to return to school.
The initiative, which runs until Saturday, Sept. 13, will focus on high-traffic areas including local, collector, and arterial roads, as well as bike lanes, sidewalks, and crosswalks. Officers will also increase enforcement in school zones, targeting drivers who speed, drive aggressively or impaired, and park or operate vehicles in cycle lanes.
Micromobility vehicles include bicycles, electric bikes, e-mopeds, and electric kick-scooters. Police say the campaign will involve both education and enforcement under the Highway Traffic Act and the City of Toronto by-laws.
The campaign follows a City Council recommendation for Toronto police and City staff to collaborate on improving public awareness and safety around micromobility use. The City of Toronto launched its own educational campaign earlier this summer, highlighting infractions such as illegal sidewalk riding, wrong-way cycling, and improper e-moped use in bike lanes.
Toronto’s Micromobility Strategy, adopted by City Council in May 2024, outlines an approach to integrating small, low-speed vehicles into the city’s transportation network.
The strategy emphasizes safety, equity, and environmental sustainability, and includes pilot projects for cargo bikes and quadricycles. Electric kick-scooters, however, remain prohibited on public streets, sidewalks, and bike lanes due to safety concerns, particularly for seniors and people with disabilities.
Police say the campaign will be expanded city-wide. Officers will be visible throughout the campaign period, engaging with riders and drivers.
CTV News August 16, 2025
Originally posted at https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/2-injured-after-collision-between-e-scooter-and-pedestrian-in-etobicoke/
2 injured after collision between e-scooter and pedestrian in Etobicoke
By Jermaine Wilson
A Toronto police officer’s uniform is seen during a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Toronto police say an e-scooter rider and a pedestrian were both injured in a collision late Friday night in Etobicoke.
Officials say officers were called to Mabelle Avenue and Dundas Street West at around 10:30 p.m. for reports of a crash involving a male on an e-scooter and a female pedestrian.
Both were transported to hospital with “non-life-threatening injuries.”
Mabelle Avenue was previously closed at Dundas Street West for the investigation but all roads have since re-opened.
There is no word on any charges.
CTV News September 14, 2025
Originally posted at https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/woman-injured-in-north-york-fire-that-appears-to-have-been-cause-by-an-electric-scooter-toronto-fire/
Woman injured in North York fire that appears to have been caused by an electric scooter:
By Joanna Lavoie
A woman has been injured in a Sept. 14 fire near Highway 400, between Sheppard and Wilson avenues in North York.. (Jacob Estrin/CTV News Toronto)
A woman has been injured in a fire in North York, which Toronto fire said appears to have been caused by an electric scooter.
The blaze broke out on Sunday evening at a home on Joseph Griffin Lane, which is near Torbarrie Road and Judy Sgro Avenue, just east of Highway 400 between Sheppard and Wilson avenues.
Toronto fire said they were called to that area at 9:11 p.m. for reports of a fire in the front of a house.
They said crews arrived and saw visible flames behind a window.
The fire was suppressed, Toronto Fire Service said, and has been knocked down.
Paramedics told CTV News Toronto that they transported one patient, an adult female, to the hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries.