The uptake for Ballarat's latest venture, e-scooters, has been positive - but three days into the 12-month trial, issues are surfacing.

"It's a good idea that is going to be spoiled by people doing the wrong thing," said a pedestrian.

Some of the most clear cut rules have been ignored, with riders under 18, without helmets and on footpaths.

While the fine for riding an e-scooter on the footpath is $182, pedestrians are fighting for their right of way.

This follows a first reported injury when a rider fell from a scooter early on Thursday morning.

Are e-scooters part of Ballarat's transport future? Scroll to the bottom and tell us what you think

Ambulance Victoria reported a woman suffered upper body injuries after crashing on Mair Street at 12.45am and was taken yo Ballarat base hospital n a stable condition.

The Neuron Mobility app has implemented a pop-up notification stating 'No footpath riding' but as Arthur Shulkes, 72, says, it's difficult for a GPS to regulate that.

"The GPS doesn't know if the scooter is 1 metre on the footpath or 1 metre on the road," he said.

"I experienced them (e-scooters) in Adelaide when I was there in May this year and you couldn't walk down the footpath anywhere."

One pedestrian said "people using the footpath is so dangerous," and that it's potentially too hard for police to control.

"Unfortunately it's not something the police have time to regulate, but without some action it's just going to get worse and worse," she said.

She also said it wasn't a rarity to see people riding without helmets.

"A gentleman rode past me on the footpath without a helmet on last night and three girls rode past without helmets too."

The fine for riding an e-scooter without a helmet is $227.

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Many have seen minors riding around.

"The e-scooters clearly say you need to be over 18 but there's no way to regulate that."

The fine for someone under 18 riding an e-scooter is $182.

Mr Shulkes also expressed concern about the ability to park the scooters anywhere.

"At three o'clock in the afternoon it looked like a hurricane had come in and dropped them everywhere," he said.

Mia Costigan, 19, said the e-scooters are "so easy and fun to ride" but because people can park them wherever they want, her and her friends found that the scooters can be hard to track down.

"We were going to the pool in Eureka, but we're trying to find three of them so we can all ride them," she said.

Neuron's incentive for parking is that if riders leave their e-scooter in one of 50 designated spots, they can get a 50 cent refund off their trip.

"They're all over the place."

In terms of if the scooters are doing what they set out to, early on, Mr Shulkes isn't sure.

"If the aim of the council is to reduce cars, they should have a minibus to go between the train station and the gardens, it's just a gimmick that doesn't serve the purpose of reducing the number of cars coming into the CBD," he said.

From the outset, The City of Ballarat Mayor Daniel Moloney knew it wouldn't be a flawless implementation.

"I don't have a problem with us working through issues as the scooter trial emerges," he said.

Time will tell how these issues are worked through - especially when some of these issues might be bigger than the e-scooters alone.

People of Ballarat's LGTBQIA+ community had already flagged concerns with the behaviours of young men around the CBD, but after one person had an encounter with men on scooters after coming out of the cinema, it's clear there are bigger problems with general attitude and behaviour on CBD streets.

An anonymous citizen said they were chased and forced into a corner by five men on e-scooters who then shouted abuse at them.

They said while "hoons" usually stay in the cars and yell at pedestrians, "scooters give men of all ages the ability to go around and harass people".

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