From Lime and Bird to Veo and Spin, e-bikes and e-scooters have become a fixture of daily life in cities nationwide, and Charlottesville is no exception. U.Va. students can unlock a vehicle capable of hitting over 20 miles per hour within seconds, often without a second thought for protective equipment. Walk across Grounds on any given afternoon, and you are likely to see riders without helmets, two people sharing a scooter built for one or riders merging into traffic and blowing through stop signs. Although these vehicles offer real advantages, their largely unregulated rise has normalized a set of unsafe behaviors that deserve far more attention than they currently receive.
As medical students who will soon be treating the consequences of these injuries firsthand, we believe e-bike and e-scooter safety is a public health issue the University and the Commonwealth can no longer afford to overlook.
Part of the problem is perception. E-scooters and many e-bikes are marketed, designed and socially treated like toys with their bright colors, app-based rentals and no licensing requirement whatsoever. However, they function much more like motor vehicles. As a result, riders consistently underestimate the danger. That same app-based system puts children at particular risk, since an increasing number now carry their own phones and thus can rent a vehicle independently, with no adult oversight built into the process. By perceiving these e-scooters as an easily accessible and safe option for transport, riders are put at risk writ large.
This perception gap shows up clearly in the data. A 2024 study published in JAMA Network Open analyzed national emergency department trends in micromobility injuries from 2017 to 2022 using the Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. E-bike-related injuries roughly doubled every year, rising from 751 cases in 2017 to 23,493 in 2022, while e-scooter-related injuries climbed more than 45 percent annually, from 8,566 to 56,847 over the same period. These are not minor scrapes. Injuries range from lacerations to broken bones and traumatic brain injuries. A 2020 study in Injury Prevention found that head injuries and hospitalizations are disproportionately common in e-bike and e-scooter crashes compared to conventional bicycles — a consequence of their higher speeds and heavier frames.
Regulation has not kept pace with this trend. Federally, the Consumer Product Safety Act defines a "low-speed electric bicycle" only by motor wattage and top speed. It creates no safety framework and sets no rules for where or by whom these vehicles can be ridden. Virginia's state code caps electric personal assistive mobility devices at 25 mph and e-scooters at 20 mph, and it requires riders under 14 to have adult supervision — but it imposes no license or registration requirement and still permits these vehicles on highways with speed limits up to 25 mph. The University also has an official policy banning riding on sidewalks, without a helmet or under the influence of substances, and mandating parking in designated locations approved by U.Va. Parking and Transportation.
However, codes without enforcement mean little. Geofencing can slow a scooter down in a designated zone, but it does nothing to stop a child from unlocking one in the first place. Apps do not always require photo verification of age, and even if they do, it is easy to bypass a parent’s or older sibling’s account. Once unlocked, what is practically stopping a child from riding a Lime scooter into traffic?
There is some hope on the horizon. In March 2026, the Safe SPEEDS Act was introduced in Congress to create uniform federal classification and labeling standards through the CPSA. But even this bill stops short of addressing helmet use, supervision policy or age minimums, which are the factors that matter most for injury prevention.
Emergency department physicians at the University have seen the consequences of this regulation gap firsthand. "We used to never think about this. And it's a definite thing now," said Dr. Kathleen A. Noorbakhsh, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the University, noting the sharp shift she's seen in recent years. She pointed to a consistent mismatch between perception and reality, "There is an underappreciation of how fast they go," she said, noting that riders often treat these vehicles like a regular bike or scooter. Helmet use, she added, is nearly nonexistent. "Nobody wears a helmet" in part because rentals are spontaneous, she said. "It's usually a last-minute decision … why would you have your helmet with you if you're walking?" Asked what would meaningfully reduce injuries, she pointed to clearer age guidelines, consistent helmet use and built-in safety education through rental apps — "We wouldn't let you drive a car without knowing what the signs mean."
None of this is an argument for banning e-bikes and e-scooters. They remain a genuinely useful, low-cost and environmentally friendly mode of transportation. What is necessary is regulation that matches the real risk — enforceable age minimums, helmet requirements built into the rental process, in-app safety education before a first ride and state and federal policy that treats these vehicles as what they are, not as what they are marketed to be. Universities have a role to play, too. Although the University has an official policy as previously mentioned, there is little awareness of and enforcement of these rules. We implore the University to take the next steps in properly educating students on — and enforcing — riding regulations, or even removing designated e-bike and e-scooter parking spots from Grounds altogether. Until these changes happen, the gap between "innocent scooter" and "unlicensed 20-mph motor vehicle" will keep sending riders, including children, through the doors of emergency departments. As future physicians who will be on the other side of those doors, we would like the law to catch up before we do.
Hannah Kirkham, Sriyaa Suresh and Mackenzie Dorsey are fourth-year medical students at the U.Va. School of Medicine. Sadie English is a pediatric intern and a 2026 graduate of the U.Va. School of Medicine. They can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this guest column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. The guest column represents the views of the authors alone.
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