Two Hobart City councillors are calling for a trial of e-scooters to be put on ice in Hobart for a month so an "urgent report" can be done on the safety risks they pose.
Aldermen Jeff Briscoe and Marti Zucco said disability advocates and senior citizens had "expressed deep concerns" about the use of scooters on footpaths.
They said there were many instances of them being "used inappropriately … including doubling up, vandalism, kids under 16 using them, no helmets and inappropriate speeds".
"I think we rushed too quickly and didn't do enough background and didn't get police on side," Alderman Briscoe said.
"There have been lots of accidents and a lot of our footpaths aren't suitable. We need to pause, do an audit of our footpaths and have some no-go zones."
It comes as the Queensland government said it would introduce new rules relating to e-scooter use following an increase in injuries in that state.
Two e-scooter providers — Neuron and Beam — have been given approval by the Hobart and Launceston city councils to run 12-month trials in the respective cities starting earlier this year.
The trial has attracted controversy, with phone footage of collisions and near-misses with pedestrians or scooters abandoned in dangerous places appearing on social media.
Beam currently has a no-go zone set up along Sandy Bay Road in Hobart after a man crashed into an elderly woman stepping out of Brew cafe.
Anyone who now rides a Beam scooter into that area will automatically stop until they are out of the area again.
There are also slow zones down by Hobart's waterfront, limiting scooters to 10 kilometres per hour.
Brew owner Richard Scarr said he estimated the scooter was doing about 25kph when the woman was hit walking out of his cafe.
"I don't want the scooters to be stopped," he said.
"I think they're a good thing for Hobart. But they need to use the technology they have to slow them down in areas where there's high pedestrian usage.
"The purple scooters are definitely doing a better job [at limiting speed]. The orange ones, not so much."
Providers propose 'safety rangers', bans
The Hobart City Council documents said there had been about 20,000 e-scooter journeys a week in Hobart since the trial started and there had been some teething problems.
"Introducing new transport modes into established cities can be challenging and we need to be agile in our approach," the council staff response said.
It added that the e-scooter companies had moved to address concerns about behaviour by hiring 'safety rangers' to promote rider awareness and safety.
Only one provider gave data about problem riders.
The company said it had issued 92 'targeted communications', 112 warnings and had banned three riders.
The council documents said that since the trial began about 50,000 people had signed up to use the scooters in Hobart and there had been four minor injuries, none of them requiring hospitalisation.
"Research by vendors suggests e-scooters are no more dangerous than bicycles and e-bikes which have been used on Tasmanian roads and footpaths for many years," the council agenda said.
Alderman Briscoe said he thought the injury rate was underestimated.
"Doctors have been calling me indicating there are more injures than reported including broken bones," he said.
"I think there would be a lot more than you'd think."
Asked whether there was a risk council would regulate all the fun out of the scooters, he said: "No, we are the adults in the room."
"The first serious accident, we'll get the blame for it because we allowed it to happen.
"In Brisbane, there have been 600 presentations to the emergency department."
Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds declined to comment.
