Police say they’re concerned about the rise in road fatalities involving electric rideables after the death of a child who was riding an electric motorcycle in Melbourne’s north-east.
A 15-year-old boy, who was a pillion passenger on the electric motorcycle, died when the bike collided with two cars and he was thrown from the motorcycle at South Morang about 5:30pm Wednesday.
The 17-year-old rider of the bike was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said the 15-year-old boy was not wearing a helmet and the electric motorcycle was unregistered.
The fatality was the 19th death on Victorian roads so far this month and the fourth fatal accident involving a child in the past two weeks.
The fatality brings the number of lives lost on Victorian roads this year to 80. (ABC News)
Acting Assistant Commissioner for Road Policing Justin Goldsmith said the incident should not have happened.
“This is a great frustration for Victoria Police and a great frustration for the community I’d imagine. These things are totally avoidable,” he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
He said the rise in accidents involving electric rideables such as scooters and motorcycles was “an alarming trend” that posed significant problems for police.
“Really since the COVID period and the lockdowns there’s been a flood of e-rideables in general, including e-scooters and electric motorcycles and it’s surging across Australia really, so it creates an enormous amount of risk for us,” he said.
“There’s a lot of proposals before government about how to address this issue. It’s not something that we can attend to purely by police enforcement.
“It is causing a real surge in injuries as well and in some cases there’s been some fatal collisions.”
Victoria Police said 80 people had died on Victorian roads so far this year, which is down from 90 during the same period last year.
However, Assistant Commissioner Goldsmith said there had been a spike in deaths over the Easter school holidays.
“Nineteen deaths in 22 days in completely unacceptable. Unfortunately, the last two weekends that we’ve had have been particularly bad,” he said.
Anyone who witnessed the South Morang incident or has footage has been urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.