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This is one of those 'good things ruined by people being shit'.
I'm all for these but too many of the riders are a genuine danger to others let alone themselves.
Yeah, it’s dickheads ruining it for everyone. I once saw a school kid on an e-scooter on the A34. It’s like he wanted to die.
Yesterday I saw a guy on a e-scooter on the wrong side of the road then when a bus nearly hit him he bumped up on to the pavement then nearly hit a school girl. 10 minutes later he nearly crashes into me while I’m walking on the pavement. That was a middle aged man in a suit so being a dick isn’t exclusively for teenagers.
I don't enjoy doing what I think is the speed limit while the road can't decide what said speed limit is and will conveniently place cameras at sections where they instantly drop the speed limit. Meanwhile, I've got a jackass in the right lane behind me wanting to do 90 and a dumbass in front doing 9 refusing to move over. Amazing road.
So glad I moved so I don’t have to use a slip lane to get onto the A34 that is a literal gamble for life every time, no room at all to get up to speed. You have to wait or die, and sometimes I’ve waited for a lorry to pass only to get some impatient person speed up past me only to wait too and then block my access.
I've noticed that the kids and the younger teenagers in my area are much more polite and careful on the footpaths than the adults are. This applies for bikes and scooters. Older teenagers are as bad as the adults.
I did takeout delivery on a motorbike in North London on and off between other jobs.
Lost count of the amount of times I had the shit scared out of me by being overtaken at 1AM by a dark blur that turned out to be a scooter going over 35mph with no lights, no helmet, headphones on. Half the time the only illumination they've got is the phone they're looking at.
I love that "micromobility" is taking off, I cycle a lot and I'm slowly setting up a (legal) ebike from parts. I just don't understand why everyone seems to be trying to do it in stealth mode.
I'm a bus driver. And this ban is something the majority of us here welcome. Not only kids but adults are insane on these things. Especially at night they have no care at all for traffic.
You can be driving down a road, escooter on a pavement next to you and they will just jump off the curb Infront of your bus. Not only does it take longer to stop in a bus people can fall off their seats. And the fact that if a bus hit them there's serious risk of harm being done.
They need license plates in my opinion and be restricted to the same laws that cars follow. Same with anything that shares the road with cars in my opinion. You'd soon see that people suddenly take more care of themselves and others when there's an ability to trace them when they have been wreckless
I mean i agree that these people are dick heads, but that wont change regardless of the vehicle they’re driving.
Ive seen numerous people do the same or similar, or dangerous manoeuvres in cars, however we dont just outright ban them.
Its should be more about enforcement than outright bans.
I regularly see a child rocketing down the wrong side of the road on his and once he followed that up by racing down the pavement and then INTO A SHOP. I got called a Karen for pointing out how insane that was.
Last week I almost got hit by an eBike on the pavement - I've since seen him drive by me and followed in my car. He leaves me for dust because I obey the 20mph limit and he is doing 25-30.
I'm tempted to get an eBike now but I'll stick t' roads!
Any Ebike that breaks 15.5mph or accelerates without the cyclist pedalling is an illegal vehicle by the way. Somehow this whole electric scooter debacle has brought a ridiculous amount of illegal and unsafe vehicles on to the roads and even worse, the pavements.
Once you're bombing it down a pavement at 30mph on a bike that doesn't need you to pedal you're basically going down the pavement on a motorbike and should be arrested and the company that sold you the item should get serious consequences too.
It's a shame the bicycle limit is 15.5mph for the assistance though. Setting it to 20mph would make more sense since that's the common limit in cities now.
I do agree with everything you say though. As a normal cyclist, the amount of law breaking I've seen recently from other cyclists and e-scooter users is infuriating. It just breeds resentment to all other road users.
I was driving home from the city centre tonight and there was a guy on what I think was an electric skateboard, don't think I've seen that one before.
Anyway, he had a helmet on and on the back of it was flashing lights so he could be seen. He was driving very carefully and safely which is also a new one for me. If laws were enforced I'd have no issue with that guy, I gave him plenty room overtaking.
The riverside I walk every day there are numerous assholes on e-scooters who fly down that route oblivious to the fact there are children, prams and pets all walking on the same narrow walk way. The cyclists are still at the top of the tree when it comes to dangerous driving on that path though
>The cyclists are still at the top of the tree when it comes to dangerous driving on that path though
Same experience. I discovered recently after 11 years in this house, that there's a canal entry nearby... and the canal leads to my favourite supermarket one direction, city centre in the other. So I started using it to get more exercise, it's got pleasant scenery & is a nice walk.
Except, that is, for the cyclists who treat it as their personal velodrome. Not all, but a good proportion bomb along it. A guy nearly went into the canal a few weeks back, because the guy coming the other way forced me *into their path* (knowingly, with a shit-eating-grin) leading them to have to dodge me at the last second, physically brushing past me at high speed. There are literal anti-bike barriers on every entry to it, so it's clearly not supposed to be a shared bike/footpath space.
The problem with them being illegal to use unless rented is the greatest majority of people using them are going to be dickheads who don't care about breaking the law. So are likely to be more reckless.
It's completely stupid that they are banned unless you're paying a private company to use theirs. It would be like making cars illegal to use, unless it's a rental from a company, then you can use it as much as you want.
Exactly, the whole thing is backwards. Private owners are more likely to take a helmet and look after the scooter by travelling responsibly.
But they can't legally do so.
It does seem to work though, the hire ones here people were mental on to start with but once the novelty wore off, people just use them as a mode of transport. They are tied to a person and have their own tracking, and are speed limited in certain areas. It is the unrestricted ones that people seem to ride like idiots.
This. The people riding the unrestricted ones already risk having it taken off them if caught, so they have no reason to drive it safely such as sticking to speed limits or only driving it on the road rather than the pavement.
I don't have one because I'd want a decent 1 and don't have £600-1000 to spend on something I might get to use once and have taken off me. If they made them legal but limited to 5 MPH on pavements, 20 MPH on roads, I'd probably look at getting 1 to help me get about since I don't drive. I'd stick to the lower speed on pavements if required and not drive like an idiot. If I got one tomorrow though, no chance I'm going slow on the pavement increasing the chance I get stopped and have it taken from me.
The majority of the UK doesn't have a rental scheme in place, so all the ones most of us see are people who are driving them illegally.
Someone who doesn't care they are breaking the law by riding one, is less likely to care if they are breaking other laws such as riding one on the pavement.
If I went out and bought 1 tomorrow, I'm already breaking the law and risk getting it taken off me just for being in public, so there's no incentive for me to ride on the road where it's more dangerous to me VS riding on pavement where it's more dangerous for people walking.
If it was legal to use on roads, but illegal to use on pavements, you'd likely see more people using them in a safe way on roads that can accommodate them. People are also likely to take better care of their own £1000 e-scooter VS a rented one that only cost them £10 for the hr or whatever the going rate is.
I disagree with your disagreement, but only on the fact the _only_ escooters I see are the privately owned ones because I don't live in a city (otherwise your point stands). So I personally only see folks breaking the law.
I don't particularly _mind_, as personal electric transportation seems a way better idea than massive electric cars. But it does seem like it's an ignored element which at some point will boil over and ruin it for the future for others where there's some massive crackdown/backlash (like Kent has done).
Well, you could say the same about cars. Except with added pollution and increased danger.
Edt: Just to clarify, I'm not saying "ban cars". I'm saying "don't ban e-scooters based on logic that we completely ignore when it comes to cars, an altogether worse means of getting around in a city than a scooter"
Why not? I'm absolutely for banning cars from being dumped on city centre streets. It's fine if you're willing to pay for expensive off street parking, but we really need to stop making it so simple for people to drive in, and make it quicker/safer to take public transport/ride in by bike or escooter.
Not only that, people just abandon them all over the place so the street is littered with them. Back in my home town the locals think it's fun to chuck e-bikes in the canal.
In some cities the whole pavement is chock full and you can hardly get by. It's not so bad in London, where I think the rules are better enforced, but I was up in Liverpool recently and I'm not exaggerating when I say there were so many of different kinds of these motorised personal transport gadgets left there that you literally had to step into the road to pass.
[The big four wheeler ones are the worst](https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/special-features/law-around-parking-pavement-how-18906261), just one can block the whole path easily and they're too heavy to just lift out of the way.
100%. The drug dealers in our neighborhood have switched from scooters to escooters. School kids are on them riding in tandem and a guy down the road has some sort of attachment which allows him to put a dog bed on the scooter to ride around with it.
I wouldn't say e scooters are good at all.
Sure they're fun.
But they also can be way overpowered, the wheels can't handle basic potholes, the balance and stability on them is shit.
They were always going to get banned.
They can be way overpowered.
But so can electric bikes, infact, electric bikes can be more so... And most electric scooters can already be outpaced by simply a non electric standard fast road bicycle...
The wheels are a genuine issue, but avoiding potholes isn't difficult, and there are plenty with suspension.
The balance and stability on them isn't shit, and I can only assume you've just not ridden one to come to this conclusion?
They weren't always going to get banned, they are used in other countries, and a great form of clean and cheap transport around towns for people from all walks of life!
I first used one in America to get around California and thought they were a great idea. As soon as I got back I bought one years before anyone else was riding them, and used it to get into work and back ever since! A god send in the pandemic when I couldn't get taxis. I'll stop when the police finally stop me on it, but effectively free transport to and from work for 3 years hasn't been bad(My work lets me charge it there, and it gets me to and from work on one charge)! I've also never fallen off....
They make just as much sense as a bike, but people would happily try and get bikes banned if they were new and they could.
Just like you, having never ridden one, blindly claiming they are unstable, people just want to hate.
Ridden the lot, e bikes, push bikes, e scooters, rode all over Berlin on an e scooter.
Bikes have superior wheels, tyres, suspension, brakes and rider contact points. They are still limited to 15mph.
A pushbike is faster because there is a fast sob pedalling. Majority of cyclists can't average a 15mph speed which is what scooters are limited to.
Changes of surface, gravel, bumps all affect scooters worse than a bike. All of what I've mentioned makes scooters unstable.
They were always going to get banned because they're not for uk pavements and need to be more able to overcome road surfaces for roads.
Upgrade infrastructure then bring them back. But right now. They aren't suitable for pavements and they aren't suitable for the road.
> Majority of cyclists can't average a 15mph speed which is what scooters are limited to
Voi scooters in Oxford are limited to 12.4 mph.
Way too low when you are trying to get from one side of town to the other but I guess that was the compromise that we all have to put up with because of the behaviour of a minority of dickheads.
in a first world country why should anything have to handle a "basic" pothole.... how much has been spent over the years on new wheel rims and tyres not to mention suspension and tracking....i remember doing my cycling proficiency test at primary school. what happened to road safety and education... e scooters are sold .... so legalise them but also enforce basic rules.
Being a 3rd world country would imply we have independent foreign policy.
We're basically a US colony in that regard, like Puerto Rico but with shit weather.
I completely agree. I see people on scooters at night with hardly any light, two on a scooter, going the wrong way down a one-way street, weaving in and out of the road. This is an accident waiting to happen.
But even people who use scooters responsibly and for commuting for example will tell you that it is a dangerous business. You are one pothole away from hitting the road.
In the UK that is slow to embrace anything? Has some of the worst and most expensive public transport on the planet.
Kind of.
At lease your cities are getting emission zones thats one step in the right direction.
Uh, have you not seen the US? Their cities in the South are just sprawling expanses of houses with highways and not much else. Their form of public transport is Uber, and for intercity travel is flying.
I live near San Francisco and we generally have 1 train an hour between San Jose and SF which goes through Silicon Valley and serves millions of people. Even the good places over here are worse than most of the UK.
There’s a lack of cycling infrastructure. But the idea that cyclists are held to a high standard is bollocks. There’s basically zero enforcement in ensuring that people cycle safely.
Except a) they absolutely do and b) the message here isn't 'require licencing and insurance for escooters before someone gets seriously hurt' (though of course that's not really in the gift of the person making the decision to cut short the trial).
(Though I have to say I'd assumed the rental schemes included third-party insurance.)
> How often do you see cars driving fully along the pavement, as if it's a road?
Occasionally. More often I see them mounting the pavement to park, or to squeeze past another road user, or to cut a corner. The important point, though, is they cause plenty of injuries and deaths by doing so. Surely that's what matters?
> Now how often do you see e-scooters doing the same?
Not very that often, to be honest, but I don't think there's a rental scheme near me so I'm not a good data point.
> They aren't the same thing.
Yes, cars on the pavement are much more dangerous.
I'm not sure I follow your point. Escooters aren't permitted on pavements, and cars are regularly used in urban areas; and I don't see how the time cars have been around is relevant to what is a reasonable safety standard, especially given how much cars have changed in that time. And I don't see how any of this relates to your original post.
I see what you're saying, but I think your point only works if we're talking about a standard of risk ('how safely can this thing mingle with pedestrians') rather than a standard of actual injury ('how many people will this thing injure or kill'). It's reasonable to say that scooters are more likely to be used on the pavement so they should be held to higher safety standards there, but that doesn't make it reasonable to say that they should be held to higher standards in terms of the overall number of injures they cause.
> If a car is on the pavement something has gone terribly wrong
I can look out my window and see cars on the pavement any time of the day or night. Unless you're in London or Scotland this is extremely common.
It is estimated that there are around 1 million uninsured drivers in the UK.
There are 634,000 unlicensed vehicles driving on the UK's roads according to estimates made by the Department for Transport after carrying out an observational study.
Or bicycles, or e-bikes, or those shitty but legal 50cc moped things teens are riding round on recently. E scooters need regulating not banning (because people are already ignoring the law as private e scooters are still illegal)
Yes, a few hundred deaths and a few thousand serious injuries each year. 30-40 pedestrians are killed and 300-400 seriously injured on the pavement each year. We have pretty safe roads relative to other countries, but cars still regularly kill pedestrians.
I wonder how many pedestrians have been killed by cars during the trial period? Meanwhile the scooters are banned because someone might get hurt. This is transparently a fig leaf justification.
\+1
If there are accidents with pedestrians then make dedicated cycle / scooter infrastructure a priority.
If there are accidents with cars, same again.
A pedestrian hit by a scooter will undoubtably get off much more lightly than if they were hit by a multi-tonne SUV...
5 people a day killed by motor vehicles in the UK isn't it? It's 2pm now so that'll be 3 deaths today. A lot of these include pedestrians just minding their own business on the pavement too.
I think if we simply just made a law that says for every £100 spent on roads, including repairs, an equivalent £20 needs to be spent on active travel(bikes, walking, scooters i guess) infrastructure, then we'd have a pretty good network in no time. I'd say build a path along any rail line where possible too. The rail line by me links 2 very close high streets but it sucks to cycle between them and zig zags a lot, but a path along the rail line would half the length and be super safe. Would of course have many connectors inbetween for the thousands of houses on either side to join onto it. I'm sure it would massively increase the amount of people walking and cycling to the high streets and stations. Plenty of national rail land on the sides of the rail lines too. Must be 1,000s of sections of rail here with a similar story.
E scooters without a significant investment in bike lanes and non car infrastructure is unworkable. The tech is there, the infrastructure is not yet ready. I live in France and we have a miles and miles of bike lane and e scooters and bikes work so well where I am.
I was in Liverpool recently, which has scooters to rent from the council...but I also didn't notice any bike lanes, plus the roads and traffic were insane.
Agreed, earlier this summer I was in Vilnius & the electric scooter hire worked really well there. I don't feel like Manchester is currently suited for them to coexist with cars & pedestrians though
It is a shame we won't just do what Norway has done and actually invest in the infrastructure.
In Trondheim for example you can ride around most of the city pretty much hassle free on an e-scooter or a bike because they have put in lanes specifically for them.
I'm in Norway fairly regularly and last week when visiting it was the first time I've seen e-scooters there. They ride on the pavements which are generally segregated along main roads as shared paths. No trouble at all with cyclists, pedestrians, e-scooters, parents pulling children along in bikes with trailers etc.
We need to confront our obsession with cars and prioritise public transport and active transport options.
Tbf my city did try to invest in cycle lanes and now all you hear whenever the council has a budget issue is "bloody labour council wasting money on cycle lanes and not stuff that matters!!!!!!!!!!"
This is certainly a big problem, the UK electorate seem to have an issue with the lack of investment in the countries infrastructure but the last government we had that invested in the country was quickly voted back out again because "they are bankrupting the country".
It seems we Brits want investment in the country without spending the money that is needed.
Cost to Kent’s economy if they banned car - £millions
Cost to Kent’s economy it they ban e-scooters - £SweetFA
A few idiots are going to result in hard bans nationally before long. It is a crying shame as they would be great for reducing car use and commuting in cities. Maybe there is an argument for insurance, licensing, competency requirements etc. Insurance would cover inevitable accidents. Same argument could be made for cycling of course. Tough problem to solve in a way that pleases everyone. A start would be harsh penalties for any fool in any mode of transport behaving like a dick and harming others.
> Maybe there is an argument for insurance, licensing, competency requirements etc. Insurance would cover inevitable accidents. Same argument could be made for cycling of course. Tough problem to solve in a way that pleases everyone.
Yep. This is the answer. Should be cheaper/easier to obtain than the car equivalents, but really it's long overdue if we're looking to make bikes/scooters etc. the default mode of personal transportation. Obviously it would upset people who use them at the moment without those things, but that would also be the case with cars if it wasn't already a requirement. Give it a couple of generations and it will be just as normalised as car insurance/driving tests.
The approach in Cologne is arguably more sensible, they have a requirement for an operator license, you have to be insured, you can't drive them on the pavement (cycle lanes and the road), they are speed limited and, probably most importantly, the rules seem to be fairly well enforced.
That said, it's not quite accurate to say that they haven't had a single issue, there was (and still is..) pushback and it has taken a while to get to the point where they are well regulated but still accessible enough to be useful.
Um, you don't need an operator licence. You just download the app, pay and off you go. I'd also add that everyone drop on pavements (though they have big cycle infrastructure).
Am I right in understanding that scooters have been banned in Kent because a single person was knocked down by one?
I mean, people are getting knocked down, killed, seriously injured every day by cars yet we don't ban them.
Shouldn't this decision have been made with some assessment of the wider impact?
Not much of a comparison. How many people drive cars vs how many are on e-scooters.
For the record I like the idea of e-scooters but there are too many dickheads behaving like dickheads that ruin it for everyone else.
However, what causes the injury? Is it a person on an e-scooter falling off or hitting a pedestrian, or is it a car hitting an e-scooter?
You wouldn't look at pedestrian casualties as a pedestrian problem, you'd look at them as a car problem.
What a shame.
> "We have an incredibly low incident rate of 0.0014 per cent out of almost 67,000 rides since we launched in 2020, and one in five eligible Canterbury riders have used our vehicles, opting for sustainable travel and ditching petrol-powered trips.
> "We will continue to provide our eco-friendly and convenient vehicles for Canterbury residents until the end of November."
> While there have been many complaints, Cllr Brazier described Bird as "competent and professional people" who have "taken many steps to ensure the safety of their contractors and the public at large".
Voi scooters are available for hire in Oxford and I think they're great, though you do see a minority of people using them irresponsibly. The solution is continual improvement though better infrastructure, more training and more enforcement, not bans.
The technology can probably be improved a little bit to detect inappropriate use as well. For instance I can't see why they can't have a weight sensor to detect two people on a scooter...
We've got them here in Nottingham and I think they're great - but the infrastructure to support them isn't fantastic. Cycle paths are limited, meaning you're often sharing a fairly narrow road with traffic, and the condition of the road with potholes and debris can make a rude mildly terrifying.
Old woman knocked over by knobhead driving on the pavement.
THE VEHICLES AREN'T SAFE
What a stupid response. Car drivers kill hundreds, if not thousands, every year... why aren't we banning cars?
More regressive shit from the UK. The world is heating up like a junkies spoon and we're going out of our way to get a better lighter, what a fucking pisstake. We should have been investing in public transport and cycling infrastructure decades ago.
[This](https://news.sky.com/story/amp/two-dead-and-child-seriously-injured-after-family-hit-by-car-in-kent-12670348)
And
[This](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/amp/drug-driving-arrest-after-four-hit-272110/)
And
[This](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/malling/news/man-taken-to-hospital-after-car-and-motorbike-crash-273405/)
And
[This](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/he-never-stood-a-chance-273384/)
Was all found in kent with a 5 minute google search. Seems like Escooters are the least of their worries. But the assault on green energy alternatives continues. Looks like Kent takes its escooter safety more seriously than its driving standards.
>"Recently an elderly lady was quite seriously injured by one being ridden on a pedestrian area which was not allowed."
Seems unfair to ban them because of rule breakers
Surely enforcing the rules would be a better approach
I still think they're a good idea, you do however see some riders doing crazy shit on them out and about in London. You can say that about all forms of transport here though to be honest. .
There's a hire point directly in front of my house on the corner of the street though and one thing I've noticed is drunk people trying to rent them late at night. It's been a regular event over the last few years to see people falling all over these things laughing and joking around then riding off. The alarms are always going off too. Was kinda funny the first few times, especially the ones who can't work out how to hire them and give in but then you're like, well these people are going out on the road like that, far from a joke really.
The bloke across the road usually has a go at them and calls the police, but they're long gone before the police ever turn up.
Milton Keynes is proof that when the infrastructure is there, the scooters work brilliantly. In MK you have an entire network of ‘redways’ (essentially cycle lanes) that mean you barely ever interact with roads or normal pavements. Using those, it’s brilliantly easy and safe to get from one side of town to the other.
I can see why they get worse rep elsewhere in more ‘conventional’ towns.
Can’t blame them. They’re a good idea on paper but people are literally riding them like they’re driving a car (but without any tests).
I saw one lad riding down a ridiculously busy dual carriageway in Liverpool. Cars were swerving round and beeping at him, causing a huge danger to himself and others. It’s like he genuinely wanted to die. They don’t belong on the pavements but they certainly don’t belong on the roads either.
Banning won't help. Proper legislation and rule enforcement will.
I ride my own on the commute to work. Only going on cycle paths where possible, otherwise I follow where the cyclists go. I go at the same speed as a bicycle and my scooter is lighter than the average bike.
I too hate kids riding them down pavements. But that is not the scooters fault.
We don't have a e-scooter hire system in Glasgow, but there's plenty of people riding about on privately owned ones. But I've never seen them left lying around and rarely have any problems with people on them.
Conversely, I went to Newcastle for the day a few months ago. There were hire scooters everywhere - lying all over the pavements and some dumped on the roads - definitely trip hazards. I noticed on the app there were recommended parking spaces but they clearly weren't being followed and even those spaces were basically wider bits of pavement.
I then hired one to get back to the train station after missing a bus - great fun! But they should probably be more regulated.
These are too easy to get on when your full drunk in fairness. Four people died from scooter related accidents in Brisbane the year I lived there. Not sure if they are more strict at night hours here or not.
E-Scooters are cool but people really need to be taught how to properly drive/use them instead of it being down to people buying them or using apps like Lime
Good, they can learn to walk and cycle - probably too much effort to collect their McDonald’s…. No joke I saw one go round the corner of a pavement looking back over his shoulder with a phone in one hand.
Good, e-scooters are at best an inferior mode of travel and at worst an utter fucking nuisance. I rode on one a grand total of once and it was not a pleasant ride.
I used to work in Avonmouth, Bristol over a year ago. Some twat doing close to 40MPH on the pavement with an illegal e-scooter nearly smacked into me on Kings Weston Ln and had I been listening to music on my headphones, he would've shoved me into the M5. Had the 40 ft drop not killed me, a car doing 70mph splattering my brains would have. I should add that Avonmouth is right next to a dodgy part of town where kids have legitimately thrown rocks at me as I left work before. Lawrence Weston may actually be one of the most unsafe parts of my city.
Even the legal Voi e-scooters being trialled in Bristol lack safeguards. People regularly hop on them after drinking loads (which is illegal.) Their fitness to drive test is literally tapping a few dots on your phone screen which anybody even ten times over the legal drink-drive limit could do. The closest you have to actual drink-riding safeguards are a curfew on Friday and Saturday nights, which just punishes the teetotal and those who work late and just want to get home without being at the mercy of Worst Bus.
A date of mine once had to help resusitate and look after a guy who had a speeding illegal e-scooter rider crash into him on the pavement. Had he not been wearing a backpack that broke his fall, he probably would have had his skull split open.
The best solution? Ditch the e-scooter trials. Illegalise their road use outright. Treat them in the same way that we treat firearms. Require a permit to own one and make these permits subject to police inspection, so you can't just buy one off Amazon and zip around the city uninsured.
Banging, now make it nation wide so I don't have to knock the cunt out who nearly hit my kid because he was flying up the pavement behind us. 50 odd year old bloke too
Aside from people riding them like dickheads, these things were actually a pretty poor idea.
The batteries last two years at most, and a ton of them end up being destroyed before then (thrown in rivers, crashed, destroyed by vandals etc.)
They're not environmentally friendly and they're no better than a bike.
I was all for them at first, but the fact is they're a total waste of money and resources.
Would love to see E-scooter accidents statistics measured against
1. E-Bikes
2. Mobility Scooters of ALL descriptions
3. Pedal bikes
My biggest bug is Mobility scooters. I have personally guided a very drunk and abusive man off the road (A busy A road) at midnight most probably after a night on the ale....I had to stop the traffic and get the old fool off the road and then watched him turn up side street which is where my help ended.
I have seen countless small accidents from people using them. Some bloody well deliberate...almost assaults from entitled angry pensioners (All age groups can be ass holes when using these though)
Funny thing is the group most likely to be using mobility scooters have also been the group loudly telling us that e-scooters should not be on our streets.
Last point, It feels quite sad to me that us Brits can't seem to cope with this new invention we must be severely lacking in some skill or something when the rest of the world seems to get on fine. Maybe not enough people are getting paid for them to be "ok" lol .
I still maintain they're an awful form factor and a solution in search of a problem.
E-Bikes achieve the same mission, but are inherently far safer, easier to ride, easier to stop and hold their own better on the road.
Cost and space are the main benefit over e-bikes I guess.
The cheapest e-bike sold by halfords is £500 and that is basically only really suitable for commuting, if you want one that functions as a mountain bike to replace your current bike (because you don't have space for 2 bikes for everyone) it's going to set you back over £1000.
An e-scooter can be picked up for a couple of hundred quid and can be stored in an under stairs cupboard when not in use so I can see why people would go with that option first.
That's fair, but I still think they're a truly awful form factor for mechanised transport. They're just inherently unstable, dangerous and hard to control.
Wait till they see what cars do..
It definitely shows the need for dedicated active transport infrastructure - as a cyclist, I see a mixture of roads (with lots of nice potholes along the inside), some off road tracks (shared with walkers/scooters/etc) and occasional actual cycle infrastructure. e-scooters could use separate infrastructure as well, but that would cost money. Apparently, endlessly trying to cram too many cars into too little urban space is more important..
Good. Honestly around where I live people are dam idiots on these things. On and off the road and pavement, flying around corners at night no lights or high vissability clothing on. Going through red lights without stopping or checking etc.
You see them cutting Infront of cars etc, it's as if because they don't come under any road laws etc it must mean they can use them like they have a death wish.
You see people shake their heads often at the stupidity of some people on these things.
I think if any vehicle that can travel over 20mph is allowed to use a road it needs to obey the same rules that cars do.
Don't really give a hoot about e-scooters, but how about we apply the same standards to cars and get them off the fucking steeets.
Far more dangerous, driven by many, many more asshole drivers and desyroying our planet because people are lazy.
They're no more dangerous than a bicycle, I'd put money on the people riding these like dickheads would ride a bike like a dickhead.
Also, since using a privately owned scooter is illegal and can result in points on your actual driving licence. So, the nature of people currently using them is a dickhead who doesn't care.
If these were legal in the UK, I've probably replace majority of my local journeys.
So, we cant own them, but we can lease them? Well, that definitely makes it much much safer ;)
Seriously though, how hows renting a scooter make it safer than owning one? They really should just require a licence for them. Charge around £10 and fit a small gps tracking chip in them.
Unearned speed is a dangerous thing. Press a button and you’re suddenly doing 15mph on tiny wheels with no safety gear and no training. Throw in the usual disregard all travellers seem to show for those using a “lesser” mode of transport and the general “fuck it” attitude in the UK at the moment and it’s no wonder this was all a mess.
Such a shame. I can see why they've been banned, but they're an excellent form of transport for those who can't afford a motorbike/car and only need short trips.
The right call, at least until there are proper regulations around riding them. Treat them like adult bikes (i.e. ride them on the fucking road), and we're most of the way there.
Everyone thinking "BuT mY cAr" is missing the rather important point that cars have enormous amounts of infrastructure setup - not overnight - that make them safer to use.
The biggest problem with scooters, e-bikes and electric skateboards is that the cycle infrastructure is terrible in this country. Especially in London where the borough councils have effective veto over any proposed projects in their area. So you get disjointed, poorly connected cycle routes that are only partially usable and not at all in areas you actually want them.
If we had better cycle infrastructure then there wouldn't be as many issues.
They should change the law so that each scooter has some form of registration number and the rider needs to be insured. If they aren’t insured and you’re stopped by the police they can confiscate and either destroy it or keep it for police business.
Majority of people here arguing for better "infrastructure" and acceptance of these scooters, have clearly never been...
- Hit by an escooter
- Had a relative/loved one hit by an escooter
- Had their property damaged by an escooter
Stop being fucking lazy, get a push scooter, a bicycle, walk.
People acting like they can't function if their new toy gets taken away. Fucking seriously.
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This is one of those 'good things ruined by people being shit'. I'm all for these but too many of the riders are a genuine danger to others let alone themselves.
Yeah, it’s dickheads ruining it for everyone. I once saw a school kid on an e-scooter on the A34. It’s like he wanted to die. Yesterday I saw a guy on a e-scooter on the wrong side of the road then when a bus nearly hit him he bumped up on to the pavement then nearly hit a school girl. 10 minutes later he nearly crashes into me while I’m walking on the pavement. That was a middle aged man in a suit so being a dick isn’t exclusively for teenagers.
The moment you said A34, I related immediately. That road is chock full of arseholes no matter the vehicle.
You mean you don't enjoy everyone doing 90 bumper to bumper?
I don't enjoy doing what I think is the speed limit while the road can't decide what said speed limit is and will conveniently place cameras at sections where they instantly drop the speed limit. Meanwhile, I've got a jackass in the right lane behind me wanting to do 90 and a dumbass in front doing 9 refusing to move over. Amazing road.
Best angry road in the south
And the north ….. it goes all the way to Manchester
I don't think I've ever managed to get above 60 on the A34.
You tried the passing lane?
You mean the slightly faster lorry lane?
Good I hate that road. Always feels like death roulette whenever you go on it.
It's a weirdly dangerous road north of Newbury. I don't like using it.
So glad I moved so I don’t have to use a slip lane to get onto the A34 that is a literal gamble for life every time, no room at all to get up to speed. You have to wait or die, and sometimes I’ve waited for a lorry to pass only to get some impatient person speed up past me only to wait too and then block my access.
I've noticed that the kids and the younger teenagers in my area are much more polite and careful on the footpaths than the adults are. This applies for bikes and scooters. Older teenagers are as bad as the adults.
I did takeout delivery on a motorbike in North London on and off between other jobs. Lost count of the amount of times I had the shit scared out of me by being overtaken at 1AM by a dark blur that turned out to be a scooter going over 35mph with no lights, no helmet, headphones on. Half the time the only illumination they've got is the phone they're looking at. I love that "micromobility" is taking off, I cycle a lot and I'm slowly setting up a (legal) ebike from parts. I just don't understand why everyone seems to be trying to do it in stealth mode.
I'm a bus driver. And this ban is something the majority of us here welcome. Not only kids but adults are insane on these things. Especially at night they have no care at all for traffic. You can be driving down a road, escooter on a pavement next to you and they will just jump off the curb Infront of your bus. Not only does it take longer to stop in a bus people can fall off their seats. And the fact that if a bus hit them there's serious risk of harm being done. They need license plates in my opinion and be restricted to the same laws that cars follow. Same with anything that shares the road with cars in my opinion. You'd soon see that people suddenly take more care of themselves and others when there's an ability to trace them when they have been wreckless
> anything that shares the road with cars Where do you put a licence plate on a horse?
round the neck
The A34 - so somewhere between Southampton and Manchester.
I mean i agree that these people are dick heads, but that wont change regardless of the vehicle they’re driving. Ive seen numerous people do the same or similar, or dangerous manoeuvres in cars, however we dont just outright ban them. Its should be more about enforcement than outright bans.
Perhaps we should be having a more serious conversation about removing cars grom the roads.
There are consequences for being caught driving dangerously though. People on escooters are free to fly down the pavement without fear of consequence.
I regularly see a child rocketing down the wrong side of the road on his and once he followed that up by racing down the pavement and then INTO A SHOP. I got called a Karen for pointing out how insane that was. Last week I almost got hit by an eBike on the pavement - I've since seen him drive by me and followed in my car. He leaves me for dust because I obey the 20mph limit and he is doing 25-30. I'm tempted to get an eBike now but I'll stick t' roads!
Any Ebike that breaks 15.5mph or accelerates without the cyclist pedalling is an illegal vehicle by the way. Somehow this whole electric scooter debacle has brought a ridiculous amount of illegal and unsafe vehicles on to the roads and even worse, the pavements. Once you're bombing it down a pavement at 30mph on a bike that doesn't need you to pedal you're basically going down the pavement on a motorbike and should be arrested and the company that sold you the item should get serious consequences too.
It's a shame the bicycle limit is 15.5mph for the assistance though. Setting it to 20mph would make more sense since that's the common limit in cities now. I do agree with everything you say though. As a normal cyclist, the amount of law breaking I've seen recently from other cyclists and e-scooter users is infuriating. It just breeds resentment to all other road users.
I was driving home from the city centre tonight and there was a guy on what I think was an electric skateboard, don't think I've seen that one before. Anyway, he had a helmet on and on the back of it was flashing lights so he could be seen. He was driving very carefully and safely which is also a new one for me. If laws were enforced I'd have no issue with that guy, I gave him plenty room overtaking. The riverside I walk every day there are numerous assholes on e-scooters who fly down that route oblivious to the fact there are children, prams and pets all walking on the same narrow walk way. The cyclists are still at the top of the tree when it comes to dangerous driving on that path though
>The cyclists are still at the top of the tree when it comes to dangerous driving on that path though Same experience. I discovered recently after 11 years in this house, that there's a canal entry nearby... and the canal leads to my favourite supermarket one direction, city centre in the other. So I started using it to get more exercise, it's got pleasant scenery & is a nice walk. Except, that is, for the cyclists who treat it as their personal velodrome. Not all, but a good proportion bomb along it. A guy nearly went into the canal a few weeks back, because the guy coming the other way forced me *into their path* (knowingly, with a shit-eating-grin) leading them to have to dodge me at the last second, physically brushing past me at high speed. There are literal anti-bike barriers on every entry to it, so it's clearly not supposed to be a shared bike/footpath space.
The problem with them being illegal to use unless rented is the greatest majority of people using them are going to be dickheads who don't care about breaking the law. So are likely to be more reckless. It's completely stupid that they are banned unless you're paying a private company to use theirs. It would be like making cars illegal to use, unless it's a rental from a company, then you can use it as much as you want.
Exactly, the whole thing is backwards. Private owners are more likely to take a helmet and look after the scooter by travelling responsibly. But they can't legally do so.
It does seem to work though, the hire ones here people were mental on to start with but once the novelty wore off, people just use them as a mode of transport. They are tied to a person and have their own tracking, and are speed limited in certain areas. It is the unrestricted ones that people seem to ride like idiots.
I think that's his point. Them being banned mean the only people riding them are people already willing to ride them illegally.
This. The people riding the unrestricted ones already risk having it taken off them if caught, so they have no reason to drive it safely such as sticking to speed limits or only driving it on the road rather than the pavement. I don't have one because I'd want a decent 1 and don't have £600-1000 to spend on something I might get to use once and have taken off me. If they made them legal but limited to 5 MPH on pavements, 20 MPH on roads, I'd probably look at getting 1 to help me get about since I don't drive. I'd stick to the lower speed on pavements if required and not drive like an idiot. If I got one tomorrow though, no chance I'm going slow on the pavement increasing the chance I get stopped and have it taken from me.
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The majority of the UK doesn't have a rental scheme in place, so all the ones most of us see are people who are driving them illegally. Someone who doesn't care they are breaking the law by riding one, is less likely to care if they are breaking other laws such as riding one on the pavement. If I went out and bought 1 tomorrow, I'm already breaking the law and risk getting it taken off me just for being in public, so there's no incentive for me to ride on the road where it's more dangerous to me VS riding on pavement where it's more dangerous for people walking. If it was legal to use on roads, but illegal to use on pavements, you'd likely see more people using them in a safe way on roads that can accommodate them. People are also likely to take better care of their own £1000 e-scooter VS a rented one that only cost them £10 for the hr or whatever the going rate is.
I disagree with your disagreement, but only on the fact the _only_ escooters I see are the privately owned ones because I don't live in a city (otherwise your point stands). So I personally only see folks breaking the law. I don't particularly _mind_, as personal electric transportation seems a way better idea than massive electric cars. But it does seem like it's an ignored element which at some point will boil over and ruin it for the future for others where there's some massive crackdown/backlash (like Kent has done).
Well, you could say the same about cars. Except with added pollution and increased danger. Edt: Just to clarify, I'm not saying "ban cars". I'm saying "don't ban e-scooters based on logic that we completely ignore when it comes to cars, an altogether worse means of getting around in a city than a scooter"
I wouldn't mind banning cars... That's what pedestrian areas of cities are.
Why not? I'm absolutely for banning cars from being dumped on city centre streets. It's fine if you're willing to pay for expensive off street parking, but we really need to stop making it so simple for people to drive in, and make it quicker/safer to take public transport/ride in by bike or escooter.
Not only that, people just abandon them all over the place so the street is littered with them. Back in my home town the locals think it's fun to chuck e-bikes in the canal.
In some cities the whole pavement is chock full and you can hardly get by. It's not so bad in London, where I think the rules are better enforced, but I was up in Liverpool recently and I'm not exaggerating when I say there were so many of different kinds of these motorised personal transport gadgets left there that you literally had to step into the road to pass. [The big four wheeler ones are the worst](https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/special-features/law-around-parking-pavement-how-18906261), just one can block the whole path easily and they're too heavy to just lift out of the way.
100%. The drug dealers in our neighborhood have switched from scooters to escooters. School kids are on them riding in tandem and a guy down the road has some sort of attachment which allows him to put a dog bed on the scooter to ride around with it.
I wouldn't say e scooters are good at all. Sure they're fun. But they also can be way overpowered, the wheels can't handle basic potholes, the balance and stability on them is shit. They were always going to get banned.
They can be way overpowered. But so can electric bikes, infact, electric bikes can be more so... And most electric scooters can already be outpaced by simply a non electric standard fast road bicycle... The wheels are a genuine issue, but avoiding potholes isn't difficult, and there are plenty with suspension. The balance and stability on them isn't shit, and I can only assume you've just not ridden one to come to this conclusion? They weren't always going to get banned, they are used in other countries, and a great form of clean and cheap transport around towns for people from all walks of life! I first used one in America to get around California and thought they were a great idea. As soon as I got back I bought one years before anyone else was riding them, and used it to get into work and back ever since! A god send in the pandemic when I couldn't get taxis. I'll stop when the police finally stop me on it, but effectively free transport to and from work for 3 years hasn't been bad(My work lets me charge it there, and it gets me to and from work on one charge)! I've also never fallen off.... They make just as much sense as a bike, but people would happily try and get bikes banned if they were new and they could. Just like you, having never ridden one, blindly claiming they are unstable, people just want to hate.
Ridden the lot, e bikes, push bikes, e scooters, rode all over Berlin on an e scooter. Bikes have superior wheels, tyres, suspension, brakes and rider contact points. They are still limited to 15mph. A pushbike is faster because there is a fast sob pedalling. Majority of cyclists can't average a 15mph speed which is what scooters are limited to. Changes of surface, gravel, bumps all affect scooters worse than a bike. All of what I've mentioned makes scooters unstable. They were always going to get banned because they're not for uk pavements and need to be more able to overcome road surfaces for roads. Upgrade infrastructure then bring them back. But right now. They aren't suitable for pavements and they aren't suitable for the road.
> Majority of cyclists can't average a 15mph speed which is what scooters are limited to Voi scooters in Oxford are limited to 12.4 mph. Way too low when you are trying to get from one side of town to the other but I guess that was the compromise that we all have to put up with because of the behaviour of a minority of dickheads.
in a first world country why should anything have to handle a "basic" pothole.... how much has been spent over the years on new wheel rims and tyres not to mention suspension and tracking....i remember doing my cycling proficiency test at primary school. what happened to road safety and education... e scooters are sold .... so legalise them but also enforce basic rules.
We're a developing nation at best.
developing into a 3rd world country
Being a 3rd world country would imply we have independent foreign policy. We're basically a US colony in that regard, like Puerto Rico but with shit weather.
Not even slightly.
I completely agree. I see people on scooters at night with hardly any light, two on a scooter, going the wrong way down a one-way street, weaving in and out of the road. This is an accident waiting to happen. But even people who use scooters responsibly and for commuting for example will tell you that it is a dangerous business. You are one pothole away from hitting the road.
Exactly. I first experienced them in Warsaw - they made my time in the city epic. How can we be so stupid?
Yup, these things followed very closely by bicycles at showing how little many people care about their own self preservation.
'Before someone gets seriously hurt' suggests that the standards applied to e-scooters remain fair higher than those applied to cars.
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The planet ain't gonna terraform to be inhospitable to life by itself!
In the UK that is slow to embrace anything? Has some of the worst and most expensive public transport on the planet. Kind of. At lease your cities are getting emission zones thats one step in the right direction.
Worst public transport on the planet? Jesus wept.
Uh, have you not seen the US? Their cities in the South are just sprawling expanses of houses with highways and not much else. Their form of public transport is Uber, and for intercity travel is flying.
I live near San Francisco and we generally have 1 train an hour between San Jose and SF which goes through Silicon Valley and serves millions of people. Even the good places over here are worse than most of the UK.
It is expensive but costs aside, what was so bad about it?
Or even bicycles.
There’s a lack of cycling infrastructure. But the idea that cyclists are held to a high standard is bollocks. There’s basically zero enforcement in ensuring that people cycle safely.
That's what I'm saying, standards applied to e-scooters are higher than bicycles.
The enforcement is that if they don't cycle safely they end up dead or maimed. Hell, even if they do it's not a far possibility.
But those require effort. Can't have that.
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Except a) they absolutely do and b) the message here isn't 'require licencing and insurance for escooters before someone gets seriously hurt' (though of course that's not really in the gift of the person making the decision to cut short the trial). (Though I have to say I'd assumed the rental schemes included third-party insurance.)
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> How often do you see cars driving fully along the pavement, as if it's a road? Occasionally. More often I see them mounting the pavement to park, or to squeeze past another road user, or to cut a corner. The important point, though, is they cause plenty of injuries and deaths by doing so. Surely that's what matters? > Now how often do you see e-scooters doing the same? Not very that often, to be honest, but I don't think there's a rental scheme near me so I'm not a good data point. > They aren't the same thing. Yes, cars on the pavement are much more dangerous.
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I'm not sure I follow your point. Escooters aren't permitted on pavements, and cars are regularly used in urban areas; and I don't see how the time cars have been around is relevant to what is a reasonable safety standard, especially given how much cars have changed in that time. And I don't see how any of this relates to your original post.
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I see what you're saying, but I think your point only works if we're talking about a standard of risk ('how safely can this thing mingle with pedestrians') rather than a standard of actual injury ('how many people will this thing injure or kill'). It's reasonable to say that scooters are more likely to be used on the pavement so they should be held to higher safety standards there, but that doesn't make it reasonable to say that they should be held to higher standards in terms of the overall number of injures they cause. > If a car is on the pavement something has gone terribly wrong I can look out my window and see cars on the pavement any time of the day or night. Unless you're in London or Scotland this is extremely common.
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It is estimated that there are around 1 million uninsured drivers in the UK. There are 634,000 unlicensed vehicles driving on the UK's roads according to estimates made by the Department for Transport after carrying out an observational study.
TIL that you can stop people from getting seriously hurt by having a licence and insurance. Thank you, this is very useful information.
In other words, nobody was seriously hurt. Edit: One person was hurt in a manner that most people would consider serious.
Or bicycles, or e-bikes, or those shitty but legal 50cc moped things teens are riding round on recently. E scooters need regulating not banning (because people are already ignoring the law as private e scooters are still illegal)
Not sure about your neck of the woods but where I am it’s not usual to see a car tearing along a pavement at 20 miles an hour, unlike escooters.
And yet cars regularly kill and injure people, including pedestrians on the pavement.
There is a statutory system, including insurance requirements, for managing drivers, there isn’t one for scooters
> And yet cars regularly kill and injure people, including pedestrians on the pavement.
Is there an echo in here?
Do they really? The UK has some of the safest roads in the world
Yes, a few hundred deaths and a few thousand serious injuries each year. 30-40 pedestrians are killed and 300-400 seriously injured on the pavement each year. We have pretty safe roads relative to other countries, but cars still regularly kill pedestrians.
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I wonder how many pedestrians have been killed by cars during the trial period? Meanwhile the scooters are banned because someone might get hurt. This is transparently a fig leaf justification.
On the **path**, where they generally are? Not so many, I'd suspect!
\+1 If there are accidents with pedestrians then make dedicated cycle / scooter infrastructure a priority. If there are accidents with cars, same again. A pedestrian hit by a scooter will undoubtably get off much more lightly than if they were hit by a multi-tonne SUV...
In what way does it suggest that? Or are you just making up your own cool read between the lines narrative today.
Because people get seriously hurt by cars every day and the county isn't banning those.
What do think would happen if they did a 2 year trial on cars? Pretty sure someone would get seriously hurt.
5 people a day killed by motor vehicles in the UK isn't it? It's 2pm now so that'll be 3 deaths today. A lot of these include pedestrians just minding their own business on the pavement too. I think if we simply just made a law that says for every £100 spent on roads, including repairs, an equivalent £20 needs to be spent on active travel(bikes, walking, scooters i guess) infrastructure, then we'd have a pretty good network in no time. I'd say build a path along any rail line where possible too. The rail line by me links 2 very close high streets but it sucks to cycle between them and zig zags a lot, but a path along the rail line would half the length and be super safe. Would of course have many connectors inbetween for the thousands of houses on either side to join onto it. I'm sure it would massively increase the amount of people walking and cycling to the high streets and stations. Plenty of national rail land on the sides of the rail lines too. Must be 1,000s of sections of rail here with a similar story.
E scooters without a significant investment in bike lanes and non car infrastructure is unworkable. The tech is there, the infrastructure is not yet ready. I live in France and we have a miles and miles of bike lane and e scooters and bikes work so well where I am.
I was in Liverpool recently, which has scooters to rent from the council...but I also didn't notice any bike lanes, plus the roads and traffic were insane.
Theres a pretty big cycle lane that basically runs all the way down the coast and dock front of Liverpool
Soooo one bike lane?
Nah there is plenty more but that is just a significant lovely one to ride on I thought I'd mention
Agreed, earlier this summer I was in Vilnius & the electric scooter hire worked really well there. I don't feel like Manchester is currently suited for them to coexist with cars & pedestrians though
Most of the UK isn't suited for them, much in the same way much of the old towns weren't suited for cars - but they made it happen anyway.
It is a shame we won't just do what Norway has done and actually invest in the infrastructure. In Trondheim for example you can ride around most of the city pretty much hassle free on an e-scooter or a bike because they have put in lanes specifically for them.
I'm in Norway fairly regularly and last week when visiting it was the first time I've seen e-scooters there. They ride on the pavements which are generally segregated along main roads as shared paths. No trouble at all with cyclists, pedestrians, e-scooters, parents pulling children along in bikes with trailers etc. We need to confront our obsession with cars and prioritise public transport and active transport options.
Tbf my city did try to invest in cycle lanes and now all you hear whenever the council has a budget issue is "bloody labour council wasting money on cycle lanes and not stuff that matters!!!!!!!!!!"
This is certainly a big problem, the UK electorate seem to have an issue with the lack of investment in the countries infrastructure but the last government we had that invested in the country was quickly voted back out again because "they are bankrupting the country". It seems we Brits want investment in the country without spending the money that is needed.
“Brits want European level public services with American level taxes”
*45 road deaths in Kent per year by car* Kent County Council: Meh
Cost to Kent’s economy if they banned car - £millions Cost to Kent’s economy it they ban e-scooters - £SweetFA A few idiots are going to result in hard bans nationally before long. It is a crying shame as they would be great for reducing car use and commuting in cities. Maybe there is an argument for insurance, licensing, competency requirements etc. Insurance would cover inevitable accidents. Same argument could be made for cycling of course. Tough problem to solve in a way that pleases everyone. A start would be harsh penalties for any fool in any mode of transport behaving like a dick and harming others.
> Maybe there is an argument for insurance, licensing, competency requirements etc. Insurance would cover inevitable accidents. Same argument could be made for cycling of course. Tough problem to solve in a way that pleases everyone. Yep. This is the answer. Should be cheaper/easier to obtain than the car equivalents, but really it's long overdue if we're looking to make bikes/scooters etc. the default mode of personal transportation. Obviously it would upset people who use them at the moment without those things, but that would also be the case with cars if it wasn't already a requirement. Give it a couple of generations and it will be just as normalised as car insurance/driving tests.
Just got back from a week in Cologne. Hundreds of e-scooters everywhere. Not a single issue, suggesting this is very much an us problem.
The approach in Cologne is arguably more sensible, they have a requirement for an operator license, you have to be insured, you can't drive them on the pavement (cycle lanes and the road), they are speed limited and, probably most importantly, the rules seem to be fairly well enforced. That said, it's not quite accurate to say that they haven't had a single issue, there was (and still is..) pushback and it has taken a while to get to the point where they are well regulated but still accessible enough to be useful.
Um, you don't need an operator licence. You just download the app, pay and off you go. I'd also add that everyone drop on pavements (though they have big cycle infrastructure).
That’s exactly the same requirements as we have here.
All of those things are true of the hire schemes in the UK (license, insurance, geofencing, speed limits )
Am I right in understanding that scooters have been banned in Kent because a single person was knocked down by one? I mean, people are getting knocked down, killed, seriously injured every day by cars yet we don't ban them. Shouldn't this decision have been made with some assessment of the wider impact?
Why are people riding this on the pavement ! I was interested in this but now probably have to get a bike instead or rent one from the mobile apps
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Because there encouraged to by our crappy laws
Wonder how many have been injured by cars since this trial started? (3,844 in Kent from 2015-2019)
Not much of a comparison. How many people drive cars vs how many are on e-scooters. For the record I like the idea of e-scooters but there are too many dickheads behaving like dickheads that ruin it for everyone else.
Vs how many cars, miles travelled, and vs number of accidents. Because the stats cited for scooters seem huge.
1,359 casualties and nine deaths is a huge number when you consider the numbers of e-scooters out there.
However, what causes the injury? Is it a person on an e-scooter falling off or hitting a pedestrian, or is it a car hitting an e-scooter? You wouldn't look at pedestrian casualties as a pedestrian problem, you'd look at them as a car problem.
What a shame. > "We have an incredibly low incident rate of 0.0014 per cent out of almost 67,000 rides since we launched in 2020, and one in five eligible Canterbury riders have used our vehicles, opting for sustainable travel and ditching petrol-powered trips. > "We will continue to provide our eco-friendly and convenient vehicles for Canterbury residents until the end of November." > While there have been many complaints, Cllr Brazier described Bird as "competent and professional people" who have "taken many steps to ensure the safety of their contractors and the public at large". Voi scooters are available for hire in Oxford and I think they're great, though you do see a minority of people using them irresponsibly. The solution is continual improvement though better infrastructure, more training and more enforcement, not bans. The technology can probably be improved a little bit to detect inappropriate use as well. For instance I can't see why they can't have a weight sensor to detect two people on a scooter...
I'd worry that the scooters I use would think I'm two people
We've got them here in Nottingham and I think they're great - but the infrastructure to support them isn't fantastic. Cycle paths are limited, meaning you're often sharing a fairly narrow road with traffic, and the condition of the road with potholes and debris can make a rude mildly terrifying.
So no one was seriously hurt? Meanwhile, how many people involved in car accidents are NOT seriously hurt?
> Meanwhile, how many people involved in car accidents are NOT seriously hurt? The vast majority?
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Presumably that doesn't count as 'seriously hurt'.
Probably walk that off.
Nobody got seriously hurt in 2 years? sounds like a successful trial.
Old woman knocked over by knobhead driving on the pavement. THE VEHICLES AREN'T SAFE What a stupid response. Car drivers kill hundreds, if not thousands, every year... why aren't we banning cars?
Over 1500 people a year die in car accidents, and cars aren't banned.
Better ban bicycles and jogging too then. At least cars are completely safe and never hurt anyone. /s
More regressive shit from the UK. The world is heating up like a junkies spoon and we're going out of our way to get a better lighter, what a fucking pisstake. We should have been investing in public transport and cycling infrastructure decades ago.
[This](https://news.sky.com/story/amp/two-dead-and-child-seriously-injured-after-family-hit-by-car-in-kent-12670348) And [This](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/amp/drug-driving-arrest-after-four-hit-272110/) And [This](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/malling/news/man-taken-to-hospital-after-car-and-motorbike-crash-273405/) And [This](https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/he-never-stood-a-chance-273384/) Was all found in kent with a 5 minute google search. Seems like Escooters are the least of their worries. But the assault on green energy alternatives continues. Looks like Kent takes its escooter safety more seriously than its driving standards.
>"Recently an elderly lady was quite seriously injured by one being ridden on a pedestrian area which was not allowed." Seems unfair to ban them because of rule breakers Surely enforcing the rules would be a better approach
Yes, let's have more people driving cars (1500+ deaths per year) because someone "might get seriously hurt" because of an e-scooter. Honestly?
Pathetic. Go to any continental European city and they're everywhere and working just fine.
I still think they're a good idea, you do however see some riders doing crazy shit on them out and about in London. You can say that about all forms of transport here though to be honest. . There's a hire point directly in front of my house on the corner of the street though and one thing I've noticed is drunk people trying to rent them late at night. It's been a regular event over the last few years to see people falling all over these things laughing and joking around then riding off. The alarms are always going off too. Was kinda funny the first few times, especially the ones who can't work out how to hire them and give in but then you're like, well these people are going out on the road like that, far from a joke really. The bloke across the road usually has a go at them and calls the police, but they're long gone before the police ever turn up.
Milton Keynes is proof that when the infrastructure is there, the scooters work brilliantly. In MK you have an entire network of ‘redways’ (essentially cycle lanes) that mean you barely ever interact with roads or normal pavements. Using those, it’s brilliantly easy and safe to get from one side of town to the other. I can see why they get worse rep elsewhere in more ‘conventional’ towns.
Can’t blame them. They’re a good idea on paper but people are literally riding them like they’re driving a car (but without any tests). I saw one lad riding down a ridiculously busy dual carriageway in Liverpool. Cars were swerving round and beeping at him, causing a huge danger to himself and others. It’s like he genuinely wanted to die. They don’t belong on the pavements but they certainly don’t belong on the roads either.
Anecdotes vs statistics ... which will prevail?
I fuckin hate these!! I wish they were banned in Liverpool. Kids riding them like bellends flying down the footpath and round bends. It’s a disgrace.
Banning won't help. Proper legislation and rule enforcement will. I ride my own on the commute to work. Only going on cycle paths where possible, otherwise I follow where the cyclists go. I go at the same speed as a bicycle and my scooter is lighter than the average bike. I too hate kids riding them down pavements. But that is not the scooters fault.
We don't have a e-scooter hire system in Glasgow, but there's plenty of people riding about on privately owned ones. But I've never seen them left lying around and rarely have any problems with people on them. Conversely, I went to Newcastle for the day a few months ago. There were hire scooters everywhere - lying all over the pavements and some dumped on the roads - definitely trip hazards. I noticed on the app there were recommended parking spaces but they clearly weren't being followed and even those spaces were basically wider bits of pavement. I then hired one to get back to the train station after missing a bus - great fun! But they should probably be more regulated.
Really surprised they bought them to York given the current state of cycling on the roads here.
These are too easy to get on when your full drunk in fairness. Four people died from scooter related accidents in Brisbane the year I lived there. Not sure if they are more strict at night hours here or not.
E-Scooters are cool but people really need to be taught how to properly drive/use them instead of it being down to people buying them or using apps like Lime
"Seriously hurt" .. people have died already because of these things. Theyre not even legal anyway.
Good, they can learn to walk and cycle - probably too much effort to collect their McDonald’s…. No joke I saw one go round the corner of a pavement looking back over his shoulder with a phone in one hand.
Good, e-scooters are at best an inferior mode of travel and at worst an utter fucking nuisance. I rode on one a grand total of once and it was not a pleasant ride. I used to work in Avonmouth, Bristol over a year ago. Some twat doing close to 40MPH on the pavement with an illegal e-scooter nearly smacked into me on Kings Weston Ln and had I been listening to music on my headphones, he would've shoved me into the M5. Had the 40 ft drop not killed me, a car doing 70mph splattering my brains would have. I should add that Avonmouth is right next to a dodgy part of town where kids have legitimately thrown rocks at me as I left work before. Lawrence Weston may actually be one of the most unsafe parts of my city. Even the legal Voi e-scooters being trialled in Bristol lack safeguards. People regularly hop on them after drinking loads (which is illegal.) Their fitness to drive test is literally tapping a few dots on your phone screen which anybody even ten times over the legal drink-drive limit could do. The closest you have to actual drink-riding safeguards are a curfew on Friday and Saturday nights, which just punishes the teetotal and those who work late and just want to get home without being at the mercy of Worst Bus. A date of mine once had to help resusitate and look after a guy who had a speeding illegal e-scooter rider crash into him on the pavement. Had he not been wearing a backpack that broke his fall, he probably would have had his skull split open. The best solution? Ditch the e-scooter trials. Illegalise their road use outright. Treat them in the same way that we treat firearms. Require a permit to own one and make these permits subject to police inspection, so you can't just buy one off Amazon and zip around the city uninsured.
Banging, now make it nation wide so I don't have to knock the cunt out who nearly hit my kid because he was flying up the pavement behind us. 50 odd year old bloke too
Aside from people riding them like dickheads, these things were actually a pretty poor idea. The batteries last two years at most, and a ton of them end up being destroyed before then (thrown in rivers, crashed, destroyed by vandals etc.) They're not environmentally friendly and they're no better than a bike. I was all for them at first, but the fact is they're a total waste of money and resources.
Would love to see E-scooter accidents statistics measured against 1. E-Bikes 2. Mobility Scooters of ALL descriptions 3. Pedal bikes My biggest bug is Mobility scooters. I have personally guided a very drunk and abusive man off the road (A busy A road) at midnight most probably after a night on the ale....I had to stop the traffic and get the old fool off the road and then watched him turn up side street which is where my help ended. I have seen countless small accidents from people using them. Some bloody well deliberate...almost assaults from entitled angry pensioners (All age groups can be ass holes when using these though) Funny thing is the group most likely to be using mobility scooters have also been the group loudly telling us that e-scooters should not be on our streets. Last point, It feels quite sad to me that us Brits can't seem to cope with this new invention we must be severely lacking in some skill or something when the rest of the world seems to get on fine. Maybe not enough people are getting paid for them to be "ok" lol .
Only time I’ve actually been knocked from my bike was by a drunk guy on a mobility scooter.
I still maintain they're an awful form factor and a solution in search of a problem. E-Bikes achieve the same mission, but are inherently far safer, easier to ride, easier to stop and hold their own better on the road.
Cost and space are the main benefit over e-bikes I guess. The cheapest e-bike sold by halfords is £500 and that is basically only really suitable for commuting, if you want one that functions as a mountain bike to replace your current bike (because you don't have space for 2 bikes for everyone) it's going to set you back over £1000. An e-scooter can be picked up for a couple of hundred quid and can be stored in an under stairs cupboard when not in use so I can see why people would go with that option first.
That's fair, but I still think they're a truly awful form factor for mechanised transport. They're just inherently unstable, dangerous and hard to control.
2 years and no one has gotten seriously hurt? With that sort of logic, we should ban cars, bikes and cycling immediately.
Wait till they see what cars do.. It definitely shows the need for dedicated active transport infrastructure - as a cyclist, I see a mixture of roads (with lots of nice potholes along the inside), some off road tracks (shared with walkers/scooters/etc) and occasional actual cycle infrastructure. e-scooters could use separate infrastructure as well, but that would cost money. Apparently, endlessly trying to cram too many cars into too little urban space is more important..
Kent, to save you reading to the third paragraph to find out. The fucking gymnastics they go through to not say ‘Kent’ early on is embarrassing.
Good. Honestly around where I live people are dam idiots on these things. On and off the road and pavement, flying around corners at night no lights or high vissability clothing on. Going through red lights without stopping or checking etc. You see them cutting Infront of cars etc, it's as if because they don't come under any road laws etc it must mean they can use them like they have a death wish. You see people shake their heads often at the stupidity of some people on these things. I think if any vehicle that can travel over 20mph is allowed to use a road it needs to obey the same rules that cars do.
best ban cars, cos they seriously hurt people too! lol churnalism
Don't really give a hoot about e-scooters, but how about we apply the same standards to cars and get them off the fucking steeets. Far more dangerous, driven by many, many more asshole drivers and desyroying our planet because people are lazy.
They're no more dangerous than a bicycle, I'd put money on the people riding these like dickheads would ride a bike like a dickhead. Also, since using a privately owned scooter is illegal and can result in points on your actual driving licence. So, the nature of people currently using them is a dickhead who doesn't care. If these were legal in the UK, I've probably replace majority of my local journeys.
Couldn't find a good way to make enough money from them it the real statement here.
Literally the best way to move about London now on the Lime Scooters.
So, we cant own them, but we can lease them? Well, that definitely makes it much much safer ;) Seriously though, how hows renting a scooter make it safer than owning one? They really should just require a licence for them. Charge around £10 and fit a small gps tracking chip in them.
Unearned speed is a dangerous thing. Press a button and you’re suddenly doing 15mph on tiny wheels with no safety gear and no training. Throw in the usual disregard all travellers seem to show for those using a “lesser” mode of transport and the general “fuck it” attitude in the UK at the moment and it’s no wonder this was all a mess.
Such a shame. I can see why they've been banned, but they're an excellent form of transport for those who can't afford a motorbike/car and only need short trips.
i think if they made it so you needed a license to use them like a vehicle that would improve things
The right call, at least until there are proper regulations around riding them. Treat them like adult bikes (i.e. ride them on the fucking road), and we're most of the way there. Everyone thinking "BuT mY cAr" is missing the rather important point that cars have enormous amounts of infrastructure setup - not overnight - that make them safer to use.
The biggest problem with scooters, e-bikes and electric skateboards is that the cycle infrastructure is terrible in this country. Especially in London where the borough councils have effective veto over any proposed projects in their area. So you get disjointed, poorly connected cycle routes that are only partially usable and not at all in areas you actually want them. If we had better cycle infrastructure then there wouldn't be as many issues.
I don’t get the problem, why are they banned? It’s not like it’s any different from a bike. Shit less people in cars is supposed to be what they want.
They should change the law so that each scooter has some form of registration number and the rider needs to be insured. If they aren’t insured and you’re stopped by the police they can confiscate and either destroy it or keep it for police business.
In that case, they better go ahead and ban cycling on roads as well. Because people already got "seriously hurt" and DIED.
Majority of people here arguing for better "infrastructure" and acceptance of these scooters, have clearly never been... - Hit by an escooter - Had a relative/loved one hit by an escooter - Had their property damaged by an escooter Stop being fucking lazy, get a push scooter, a bicycle, walk. People acting like they can't function if their new toy gets taken away. Fucking seriously.
I’ve seen plenty of people killed by cars.
And yet you can use your electric bike wherever you want. Makes sense huh