An Edmonton family is left with unanswered questions after 10-year-old Dominic Del Rosario was struck by a child driving a personal e-scooter, leaving the boy with a broken arm.
Dominic was riding his bike at Callaghan Park in south Edmonton when he was hit on his right side by a seven-year-old driving an e-scooter, catapulting Dominic and leaving him with two broken bones in his forearm.
“(He was) in agonizing pain,” recalled Dominic’s father Marco. “His forearm was bent to almost a 45-degree angle.”
The experience is made more complex as Dominic is neurodivergent.
“He’s really having a terrible time expressing how he really feels.”
Marco says he’s noticed a rise in private e-scooter use in the area, which is illegal under the Traffic Safety Act.
“There has been a lot of reckless behaviour around this area, and it’s mainly caused by teens and even pre-teens,” said Marco. “They’re not only a danger to themselves, but they’re also, as you can see, a danger to others.”
Privately owned e-scooters are prohibited on city property, which includes streets, bike lanes and sidewalks, because the province’s Traffic Safety Act doesn’t permit private micromobility vehicles on public roads.
Shared e-scooters, on the other hand, are allowed on public streets through a provincial exemption for approved and licensed vendors to operate shared micromobility vehicles through an active transportation vehicle-sharing program.
Vehicles provided by vendors are required to have controlled speed limits, in-app cognitive testing and reduced speeds in slow zones.
Some private e-scooters can reach speeds up to 50km/h.
“I see zero enforcement of the law that’s available, which states that you cannot ride privately-owned e-scooters in public areas,” said Marco.
Marco contacted Edmonton police about the incident but said they couldn’t take his report as there was no evidence of malicious intent.
In an email to CTV News Edmonton, the province said it is looking at amending the Traffic Safety Act to support safe use of personal micromobility devices.
“We want people to be using these different modes of transportation,” said Mayor Andrew Knack. “But there should be speed limiters … It’s not that we want to restrict the modes of transportation, but we should absolutely have the safety requirements of how folks use that so it minimizes the chance of serious injury.”
As traffic legislation falls under provincial jurisdiction, the city is unable to create its own bylaws around private e-scooters.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg
