Denver7 reports that Children’s Hospital Colorado is seeing a massive spike in serious e-bike and e-scooter injuries among kids, because apparently Colorado looked at childhood and said, “What if we added a throttle, traffic, no helmet, and a trauma surgeon?”
This is where the shiny “micromobility” fantasy faceplants directly into the Anschutz emergency department.
Doctors at Children’s Hospital Colorado say e-bike injuries jumped nearly 184% in one year. E-scooter injuries are up 84%. Last year, the Aurora emergency department saw 62 e-bike and e-scooter injuries serious enough to require trauma surgeon intervention.
That is not “kids being kids.” That is a pediatric ER becoming the customer service desk for a transportation trend nobody bothered to treat like an actual transportation trend.
Dr. Maria Mandt said most crashes involved high speeds, loss of control, and children not wearing helmets. Nearly half of the kids treated were helmetless. And even when kids do wear helmets, doctors say many are wearing standard bike helmets built for 12 to 15 miles per hour, not electric two-wheeled missiles hauling ass through Colorado neighborhoods.
Even better, doctors say aftermarket modifications are making the bikes go faster. Because nothing says “responsible parenting in 2026” like giving a child a motorized device, letting some internet goblin juice it up, and hoping physics has a soft spot for middle schoolers.
Here’s the scam: Colorado’s ruling class loves every shiny “alternative transportation” toy until the bill comes due in blood, broken teeth, and neck trauma. Then suddenly everybody discovers safety, usually after a doctor has had to explain that children are being catapulted face-first off machines they can’t control.
We have spent years being lectured by the Boulder-Denver priesthood that cars are evil, roads are bad, density is holy, and anything with a battery and a smug little halo around it is automatically progress. Then the kids start launching themselves into traffic at speeds their brains, bodies, and helmets are not built to handle, and everyone acts shocked.
Shocked! Who could have predicted that putting children on fast, quiet, motorized bikes in streets full of cars, delivery vans, potholes, distracted drivers, and Colorado’s general “good luck, idiot” infrastructure might end poorly?
According to Denver7, 32% of the hospital’s e-bike trauma patients were hurt in crashes involving a motor vehicle. That means this is not just some park-path oopsie-daisy problem. This is kids mixing with real traffic on devices adults are pretending are bicycles because calling them what they are — small electric motorcycles for children with worse rules — would ruin the vibe.
And of course, the usual Colorado answer will probably be a task force, a poster campaign, and some grant-funded nonprofit telling everyone to “share the road” while a 13-year-old on a modified e-bike rips past a stop sign like he’s qualifying for the Dumbass X Games.
Normal Coloradans already see it. E-bikes are everywhere. E-scooters are everywhere. They fly down sidewalks, bike lanes, neighborhood streets, and shopping centers like the laws of motion were repealed by a Denver mobility consultant with a reusable water bottle and a god complex.
This state can regulate plastic bags, gas stoves, lawn equipment, building codes, parking lots, grocery fees, and your damn thermostat dreams, but somehow kids blasting around on modified electric bikes became a “well, let’s educate families” situation.
Colorado does not need another sermon. It needs adults to act like adults. Helmets that match the speed. Real enforcement on high-speed modifications. Parents who understand “trendy and convenient” is not a safety plan. Lawmakers who can distinguish freedom from letting kids become pavement confetti.
Because if your transportation revolution ends with children in trauma surgery, it is not a revolution. It is a policy cosplay scootered straight into the ER.
Source: Denver7
Just Stop It
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