It’s Debatable – A Youth Perspective

Getting a grip on Queensland’s new e-bike Legislation

Amidst the rising popularity of e-bikes and e-scooters, laws to tackle their misuse have been a topic of hot contention in Queensland Parliament.

It’s a conversation worth having, especially with new data showing more than five Queenslanders a day are ending up in the emergency department due to e-scooter injuries (ABC News, 2026).

In response, the Transport and Other Legislation (Managing E-mobility Use and Protecting Our Communities) Amendment Bill 2026 represents the most comprehensive overhaul and revamp of e-bike laws in Australia.

The big-ticket items include a ban on e-bikes for under 16s, a licensing requirement to use an e-bike, mandatory speed limits and expanded enforcement powers for police to seize and destroy illegal or modified e-bikes (all these changes hold true for both e-bikes and e-scooters).

There’s broad support for some action, but the specific legislation has received fierce pushback. One of the most controversial (and likely to get altered) is the 10km/hour speed limit on footpaths.

That’s 6-minute kilometres for the runners out there, a pretty common jogging pace. Yes, we’ve all seen people going ‘hooning’ on e-bikes but limiting them to the pace of a casual runner seems to be swinging too far the other way.

And 17-year-old Shubh Patel reckons adults make up most of the injuries anyway. “Focus on breathalysing and actual enforcement, I definitely support that,” he says. “But I’m just not on board with the under 16 rule. I was sixteen not that long ago and it’s nuts to think the government would stop me riding a bike just because it has a battery.”

Frequent cyclist Lara is also concerned about the license restriction. She has friends who rely on their e-bikes to get around precisely because they don’t have driving licenses.

“There’s a whole lot of people who are capable and safe cyclists regardless of whether they’ve chosen to get a driving license.”

And the last thing we want is to push people onto the road. There is nowhere more dangerous for a cyclist than the roads and nowhere more frustrating for commuters.

It’s a lose-lose situation to push daily e-bike riders (old people, parents with young kids on the back, school children) onto the roads. They slow everyone else down and they’re at a higher risk of injuries themselves.

Both Lara and Shubh agree though that more needs to be done and that it’s a conversation worth having.

Young people want safe footpaths and faster roads as much as anyone else. But they don’t want it to come at the cost of healthy active travel for those who rely on it.

For more information on e-bike hospitalisations and injuries click here. 

For more information on the Queensland legislation’s committee report click here. 

Note: this legislation was in progress at the time of printing this article. More current updates may now be available to the public. 

Author: Leonard Cavallaro.