The number of accidents involving electric scooters has jumped by 62% in Belgium in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, according to the first road safety barometer for 2025 from the Vias road safety institute.
Police recorded 470 accidents with injuries or fatalities between January and March, an average of five per day, compared to 291 in the first three months of 2024.
Which region scores highest?
All regions are affected by this increase, but the rise is particularly marked in Wallonia (+95%), where the number of accidents rose from 42 to 82.
In the Brussels-Capital Region, the increase is 44%, with 127 accidents recorded compared to 88 last year.
In Flanders, the figures have risen from 161 to 261 (+62%). This number does not include accidents where the police are not called, as in many cases where a single user is injured and taken directly to hospital.
Reducing risks
To curb the rise in accidents, Vias has made five recommendations: ban the import of models exceeding 25 km/h; speed up the approval of the curvomètre, a device which allows police to measure the actual speed of scooters; make helmets compulsory, given that a study has shown that 60% of seriously injured people hospitalised suffered head injuries; making fluorescent vests mandatory at night to improve user visibility; and tighten technical standards, particularly with regard to minimum wheel size.
Vias also stresses the need to step up controls, as some non-compliant models are already traveling at high speeds in public spaces, risking an increase in the number of serious accidents.
