Dashcam captures driver's 'heart attack' e-scooter moment in front of car

Yahoo

7 hours ago

Heart-stopping dashcam footage has captured the moment a young child was almost hit by a car while riding an electric scooter on a suburban Aussie street. The girl, who was riding without a helmet, suddenly swerves off the footpath and onto the road, forcing the driver to slam on the brakes with just inches to spare.
Driver Emma Ogilvie was on her way home from work through the streets of Ormeau, Queensland, last week when she noticed the girl riding the scooter on the footpath up ahead.
"I did see her and she was stopped, then she suddenly rode out in front of me," she told Yahoo News. "I slammed on my brakes and tooted the horn to alert her that she just drove out in front of a moving car."
The child quickly scootered off the road and rode away, but Emma was left feeling like she'd "nearly had a heart attack".
"I was so shaken up I had to get home," she said, adding the close call highlighted just how important it is to drive without distractions.
"She's just lucky I pay attention when I drive and I saw her. It could've been a lot worse, and although it wouldn't have been my fault, I couldn't live with myself if anything else happened," she said.
The near-miss is the latest in a string of e-scooter related incidents that often end in serious injury. A new study released this month found almost 180 children between the ages of 5 and 15 were admitted to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital in 2023 and 2024 because of e-scooter injuries. One in 10 of those were life-threatening or potentially life-threatening.
While Queensland's laws state children must be over the age of 16 to ride an e-scooter, those between the ages of 12 and 15 are allowed to do so under adult supervision. For Emma, she believes more regulation is needed.
"These young children not having road safety and not wearing helmets, they (the scooters) almost seem too powerful for these young children and they have a lot of courage on them but they are so dangerous if not ridden properly," she said.
What makes things more difficult is that electric scooters and bicycles are hard to police — especially when it comes to modifications. CEO of Bicycle NSW Peter McLean told Yahoo News that each state has different regulations, which makes it "near on impossible" for them to be enforced.
Another huge issue is education and awareness among both parents and children.
"I've got to be honest. I wouldn't be buying one for my teenager without making sure that they had a confident level of awareness and capability to actually use them in the first place," Mr McLean said. "Parents need to be taking responsibility and it's not just e-scooters, it's e-bikes and traditional bicycles.
"It's multiple things. It is the enforcement and the regulations. The government's got a strong role to play there too."
One of the simplest ways that children can be protected is by wearing a helmet.
"That's just absolutely black and white," Mr McLean said. "There's no argument there. And I would point out that some of the fatalities, unfortunately, with the bicycles and e-scooters, they have not been wearing a helmet. So that's a simple preventative measure right there."
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In Western Australia, the government has launched an investigation into the safety of e-scooters after a Perth father was hit by one as he was walking to pick up dinner. He died several days later, on June 3, in hospital.
Staggering research from the University of Melbourne revealed that one in three e-scooter deaths in the last five years have been children.
"We've identified a shocking over-representation of children... the fatalities that involve children, the vast majority of them have occurred in collisions with other vehicles," Associate Professor Milad Haghani from the University of Melbourne said.
Dr Sarah Whitelaw from the Royal Melbourne Hospital pleaded with parents not to buy electric scooters for their kids, revealing some of the horrific injuries she has seen.
"They end up with lots of soft tissue and facial fractures, sometimes half or all of their teeth missing, and unfortunately sometimes really significant head injuries," Dr Whitelaw told 7News.
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