Children should be banned from riding ebikes and e-scooters until they turn 16 and then require a driver’s licence to use one, a Queensland parliamentary inquiry will recommend.
The state parliament’s inquiry into e-mobility safety and use is expected to finish its report this week, more than a month early.
Guardian Australia has been briefed on the recommendations of the LNP-dominated inquiry, which were finalised last week. Though the recommendations were finalised, the final document had yet to be completed.
The inquiry was expected to recommend an age limit of 16 for riders, as suggested by the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland and the Australian Medical Association’s Queensland branch (AMAQ). Riders would also be required to hold at least a car learner licence, which requires completion of an online exam to test knowledge of road rules. A three-year learner licence costs $77.55 while the test costs $28.70.
The Guardian understands the recommendations would apply to all ebikes and e-scooters. The state already bans ebikes with more than 250 watts of power, or a motor that continues to assist the rider over a 25km/h top speed.
Queensland is just the latest government to consider a crackdown on ebikes, amid concern over rising injuries and fatalities and a string of deadly battery fires. The New South Wales government last week announced it was considering adopting a minimum age to ride an ebike, between 12 and 16, after a group of ebike riders travelled across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The Queensland opposition pressured the government to expedite the inquiry, particularly after the death of an eight-year-old boy in an ebike crash on the Sunshine Coast in October. A series of parliamentary petitions also put pressure on the government to set a compulsory minimum age.
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The premier, David Crisafulli, promised change last year. The police launched a targeted campaign against ebike misuse, Operation X-Ray Surety, in November.
The state government called the inquiry in May last year, giving it until 30 March to report back. It held 17 hearings and briefings, and received 1,223 submissions, much more than an ordinary committee inquiry.
The AMAQ, which represents doctors, advocated for raising the minimum rider age to 16, enforcing speed limits, mandating certified helmets and safety equipment along with investing in separated infrastructure.
The AMAQ said doctors were “frustrated that e-mobility harms unnecessarily increase the stress on our overloaded public hospitals and health services at a time when they are experiencing some of the highest rates of burnout reported”.
The AMAQ president, Dr Nick Yim, told the inquiry that “half of all e-scooter fatalities in Australia occurred in Queensland”.
In its submission the AMAQ cited a June 2025 study which identified 176 paediatric e-scooter trauma presentations at the Sunshine Coast university hospital in a two-year period.
But Bicycle Queensland’s director of advocacy, Andrew Demack, said the idea of a licensing requirement was “really poorly thought through”.
“We haven’t thought this through at all, and there are so many gaping holes in it.”
Demack disputed that teenagers using legal ebikes posed a threat, saying “the opposite was true … [people having] access to legal ebikes find them to be really helpful in their daily lives”.
“There’s no doubt that the most dangerous device on our roads are people in motor vehicles,” he said.
According to the Department of Transport and Main Roads’ annual crash report, 307 lives were lost in 284 crashes in Queensland in 2025, the highest road toll in the state in 16 years.
This included 129 car driver fatalities and 44 passenger deaths, while “personal mobility devices” – which covers e-scooters – saw the fewest fatalities, with eight deaths. There were 38 pedestrians, 50 truck driver, 75 motorcycle/moped rider and pillion, and 13 bicycle or ebike rider and pillion fatalities.
In the six months to 30 June last year, 1,455 drivers were hospitalised after a crash while 105 personal mobility device users were hospitalised with injuries.
The government has three months to respond to the inquiry recommendations, once they are released.
The government and the inquiry committee were contacted for comment.
