11 Essential Electric Scooter Safety Tips for 2025

Electric scooters are transforming urban travel – they're convenient, fun, and can help reduce traffic congestion. But with their rising popularity comes a serious rise in injuries.

Data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is sobering: e-scooter related injuries treated in emergency departments jumped 22% in 2022 compared to 2021, continuing an upward trend. Overall micromobility injuries (including e-bikes) increased nearly 21% in the same period, with over 360,000 estimated emergency visits between 2017 and 2022. Studies, like one from Tel Aviv reviewing over 3,300 cases, also show dramatic increases in injuries following the introduction of shared e-scooter services, highlighting the risks involved.

It's time we prioritize safety. Research indicates that rider falls are the most common cause of injury (around 80%). While you can't control everything on the road (like cars or unpredictable pedestrians), optimizing your own riding habits and preparation makes a huge difference.

We previously reached out to over 2,000 e-scooter riders on Facebook for their top safety measures. Combining their insights with CPSC recommendations and injury data, here are 11 essential electric scooter safety tips:

1. Always Keep Your Eyes Focused on the Road Ahead

This seems obvious, but distractions are dangerous. Unlike bikes with larger wheels, e-scooters have small wheels and often limited suspension. A seemingly small pothole, crack, bump, or uneven surface can easily cause a loss of balance or a sudden stop, throwing you off (CPSC identifies this as a key hazard).

Recovering balance is much harder on an e-scooter. Focus several meters ahead, scanning for obstacles, changes in pavement, drain covers, gravel, or wet patches. In urban areas, constantly monitor traffic and anticipate the actions of cars, cyclists, and pedestrians. Respect your speed and stay alert.

Keep Both Hands on the Handlebars

Checking your phone, adjusting a bag, waving – doing anything that takes a hand off the handlebars is incredibly risky. Your hands constantly make micro-adjustments to maintain balance.

Removing one hand drastically reduces your ability to react and stay upright, especially if you hit an unexpected bump or need to swerve. I learned this the hard way myself with a fall that resulted in scrapes and a broken phone screen – simply because I tried texting while riding slowly. If you need to use your phone or adjust something, pull over safely first.

3. Use a proper helmet

You can't prevent every crash, but you can protect yourself. Safety gear is crucial, and a helmet is the most critical piece. Injury data consistently shows the head is a common site for injuries:

The above statistics are based on the most authoritative and in-depth e-scooter injury studies done so far. As you can see, most injuries (40.2%) happen to the head. Despite that, only 4.8% of the injured subjects wore a helmet, which is extremely low compared to a similar study conducted on bicyclists, where 25.1% of the subjects wore a helmet.

Looking at how helmet usage helped bicyclists, there's a dramatic reduction in head injuries and their severity simply from wearing a helmet. And that's from using a bike helmet only!

As far as helmet selection goes, you need a bike helmet at the bare minimum - and we highly recommend going for something better. If you're riding on fast electric scooters, you should definitely get a full-face helmet that'll protect your jaw/chin and not only your head. Mountain bikes or motorcycle helmets will work well for this.

Make sure to look for something that's actually been certified and tested thoroughly, and always replace a helmet after a serious hit. Look after certifications like ASTM F1952, Snell, and CPSC.

For more information on helmet selection, see our in-depth helmet guide.

Slow Down Before Turning or Looking Back

Checking over your shoulder for traffic before turning is necessary, but doing it at speed is a recipe for losing balance.

Turning your head shifts your weight and focus, making those small balance adjustments difficult. Always slow down considerably before looking back or making a turn. If looking back to cross a traffic lane, it's often safest to come to a complete stop first.

5. Practice in a Safe Area First (Especially Beginners!)

If you're new to e-scooters, don't jump straight into busy streets. Find a large, empty, flat area (like an unused parking lot) with no traffic or pedestrians. Spend time getting comfortable with:

• Smooth acceleration and deceleration.
• Turning and leaning.
• Maintaining balance at slow speeds.
• Most importantly: Practicing braking (see next tip!). Build your confidence and skills before tackling more complex environments.

6. Master Proper Braking Technique

Knowing how to brake effectively is vital for avoiding collisions.

• Anticipate: Look ahead and anticipate when you'll need to slow down or stop. Start braking early and gently.
• Use Both Brakes: If your scooter has front and rear brakes, learn to use them together for balanced stopping power. Relying only on the rear can increase stopping distance; relying only on the front (especially grabbing it hard) can risk going over the handlebars.
• Apply Smoothly: Squeeze brake levers progressively. Avoid sudden, jerky braking unless absolutely necessary.
• Shift Weight: When braking hard, bend your knees slightly and shift your weight towards the rear of the scooter to maintain stability.
• Practice: Test your scooter's braking distance in your safe practice area so you know how quickly it can stop.

7. Inspect Your Scooter Regularly

Mechanical failures can cause crashes. Treat your scooter like any vehicle that needs maintenance.

Inspection before every ride

Personally, I have a shortlist I run through before every ride and I recommend you do so too:

1. Check if there is sufficient tire pressure
2. Check if the folding mechanism is firmly in place
3. Check that your brakes are functional

Inspection weekly or biweekly

A deeper inspection once every week or two is also highly recommend and could include:

1. Check if any bolts or screws are loose
2. Check that your brake discs aren't bent

Ensuring that your scooter is always optimally set up is very important for the safety of the rider. Once you get your scooter, you should make sure to read the manual carefully and get familiar with how it is built. You don't have to be a full-on mechanic to understand the basics and it'll surely give you some piece of mind knowing that the technical aspect of your electric scooter safety is up to par.

8. See and Be Seen: Lights & Visibility

One thing that many electric scooters lack is proper lightning. This is crucial for visibility in low-light settings. If you're out at night, not only do you want to be able to see the road ahead, you also want others to be able to see you.

Most of the front lights on e-scooters simply don't hold the power needed to properly illuminate the path in front of you so we highly recommend acquiring an external one with more lumens and equip it on your handlebar.

Taillights don't have to be as bright as headlights because they don't really have to light up anything - they are just there to clearly show your position. Often the ones on your e-scooter are bright enough, but the low position near the ground can be problematic.

You may want to consider getting something you can attach to a backpack or your shirt.

9. Use Eye Protection

If your helmet doesn't have a visor, wear glasses or sunglasses.

Bugs, dust, wind, or grit hitting your eye at speed is not just annoying – it's dangerous. It makes you instinctively take a hand off the handlebars to rub your eye, compromising control (violating Tip #2).

Eye protection also helps with sun glare.

10. Choose a Reliable Electric Scooter

Not all electric scooters are alike. Some are more reliable than others, which is why it is important to do your due research before buying.

To save you a lot of trouble, we've reviewed more than 50 electric scooters firsthand, created a top picks round-up, and an in-depth guide on how to do your own research.

When searching for an electric scooter, you can put your faith in and focus on the following:

• Is the scooter manufactured or sold by a reputable brand/retailer?
• Does the scooter have a good warranty (look for 12 months or more)?
• What are customers saying about the product? Search for user reviews on retailer websites and/or Amazon.

Careful consideration before buying an electric scooter will go a long way in ensuring you get a product.

11. Know and Follow Your Local Laws!

This is absolutely critical. E-scooter laws vary massively depending on where you ride (country, region, city). What's legal in one place might get you fined or your scooter confiscated elsewhere. Before riding, you MUST check your local regulations regarding:

• Where you can ride: Roads? Bike lanes? Pavements (usually illegal)? Parks?
• Speed limits: Are there specific limits for e-scooters?
• Helmet laws: Is wearing one legally required in your area? (Even if not, Tip #3 applies!)
• Age restrictions: Minimum age to ride?
• Other rules: Insurance requirements? Specific equipment needed? Riding safely includes riding legally. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.