Parents riding their children's scooters are injuring themselves worse than the youngsters, says ACC.
Chief executive Garry Wilson says an increasing number of adults are being treated for scooter injuries.
Up until Christmas, ACC had 288 reports of scooter accidents.
"One of the worrying signs, actually, is not the kids," Mr Wilson told a parliamentary committee yesterday.
"The kids tend to be more robust. I think they're lower to the ground. But the dads and mums ... they go faster and they fall harder."
"There's some coming through with quite severe head injuries."
Spokespeople at Middlemore and Auckland Hospitals said injuries ranged from grazes to fractures.
Former national rugby league coach Graham Lowe added to the statistics when riding a friend's scooter before Christmas.
Lowe hit a gap in the footpath outside an Auckland restaurant and was tossed over the handlebars onto the road, dislocating his shoulder and loosening his back teeth.
The "adventure" made his wife, Karen, rethink Lowe's Christmas gift of a scooter.
Instead, he received a petanque set.
"They are dangerous, I reckon," said Lowe. "It's like driving a Ferrari without brakes."
He said all scooter riders should wear protective gear.
The scooter accident was the first of three incidents that have kept Lowe off his feet.
Just as he recovered from the pre-Christmas crash, he slipped on a pontoon after watching a yacht race in Brisbane and gashed his leg.
Then, he decided to tempt fate and try another scooter - "just to see what I did wrong in the first place."
He fell off, bruising himself on the concrete. "I won't be trying that again," he said. "It's a mug's game."
Parents fall hard for scooters
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