PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — A 2024 bulletin from the American College of Surgeons said e-bikes “are emerging as a public health threat.”
That statement is based on data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which estimates e-bike injuries led to roughly 53,200 emergency room visits across the United States between 2017 and 2022, the most recent year with available data. Nearly half of those ER visits— about 24,400— happened during 2022.
WATCH: Electric bike crashes growing problem nationwide
A similar trend in e-bike injuries appears to be playing out locally.
According to the Health Care District of Palm Beach County, 29 people were taken to trauma centers in the county with e-bike injuries in 2023. That number more than doubled in 2024 to 66.
Dr. Anne Fischer, a pediatric surgeon at St. Mary’s Medical Center and Palm Beach Children’s Hospital, said she’s also seen an increase in e-bike cases in recent years.
“You see more serious head (injuries), you can have internal injuries, and you also get limb and fractures," Fischer said. "You'd expect that from falling at rates of over 15 or 20 miles per hour, which some of these (e-bikes) achieve easily.”
The CPSC estimates 104 e-bike fatalities in the U.S. between 2017 and 2022. More than half of those, according to the data, were from collisions with motor vehicles.
