Hit the brakes.
Researchers are ringing alarm bells about a surge in brain and spine injuries from electric bike and scooter crashes “at a scale we haven’t seen before.”
But it’s not just urban riders who are suffering the consequences of a fast roll, as pedestrians are getting caught in the crosshairs as well.
E-bike injuries have been on the rise. In 2022, there were 23,500 across the US — up 3,033% from five years earlier. Scooter crashes shot up 568% in the same period.
Now a new study found that use of small electric vehicles accounted for 6.9% of all trauma patients admitted to Bellevue hospital in Manhattan between 2018 and 2023.
Published in Neurosurgery and led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the study analyzed more than 900 patients treated for injuries related to electric bike or scooter use at the Kips Bay hospital.
Nearly a third of those patients suffered traumatic brain injury, and 30% needed intensive care.
What was notable to the researchers, though, was that the 69 pedestrians in the study suffered the most severe outcomes, experiencing brain injuries at almost double the rate of riders.
The most common cause of incidents was collision with a motor vehicle, accounting for nearly half of the patients.
The study also found that the majority of riders went without a helmet, which has been linked to a significantly higher chance of injury.
Injuries peaked in the evenings, specifically at 6 and 8 p.m., suggesting a correlation with food delivery traffic.
Roughly 20% of patients — both riders and pedestrians included — who were tested for alcohol were intoxicated. For riders, this was linked to both worse brain injuries and lower helmet use.
Dr. Hannah Weiss, the study’s lead author, knows the problem all to well, warning that it’s happening at a scale that’s never been seen before.
During shifts, she told Gothamist, she’d hear: “Another patient fell off an e-bike, another patient fell off a scooter. Pedestrian hit by e-bike, pedestrian hit by scooter.”
“It became so much more frequent during my first couple of years of residency,” she said. But a few simple measures could break the trend.
“The data point to actionable solutions — helmet use, safer bike lane design, and enforcement — that could prevent many of these injuries and better protect both riders and pedestrians,” she said in a press release.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani eased up on police enforcement of reckless e-bike drivers last month, despite multiple injuries and fatalities for both riders and pedestrians, according to the NYPD.
E-bike crashes also surged by 21.5% between 2024 and 2025, according to data collected by the office of Councilman Frank Morano.
A Department of Transportation spokesperson also claimed that roughly 1.2% of pedestrian injuries were from e-bike crashes in 2025.
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