Confusion over escooters’ status
WELLINGTON: Escooters have been allowed on to footpaths and roads without the risk assessments a transport official has said were necessary.
Documents show the rule change to allow the vehicles on to footpaths went through just seven days after scooter operator Lime asked for it last September.
Auckland is beginning a new trial of up to 500 escooters by a second company, Wave, using scooters to be maintained by Lime’s billiondollar rival Bird.
This comes after Lime resumed trials in Auckland and Dunedin, following a short suspension because of 150 cases of brake failure that injured 30 people.
Lime and Bird are both being sued in the US over injuries and parked scooters blocking paths.
In January last year, an NZ Transport Agency official warned there were ‘‘significant’’ risks if escooters could share footpaths and roads.
But the agency went ahead anyway, saying it did not change any road rules to do so, just clarified them.
However, this contradicts its own documents.
The warning about the risks came in January last year, in an Official Information Act response from the transport agency to a member of the public.
‘‘It would be a significant change in current classification for further smallpowered vehicles not to be treated as motor vehicles,’’ the official wrote.
‘‘Any change would require considerable investigation and consultation into the appropriateness of making a change, as there are significant possible risks in these vehicles using and sharing both the footpath and the roadway.’’
This was just months before Lime’s launch of hundreds of scooters in several cities.
But the agency said the scooters had not been classed as motor vehicles, since a 2005 roaduser rule change allowed them to be used without entry certification, registration, warrant of fitness, or any driver licensing, under a status known as ‘‘wheeled recreational devices’’.
This contradicts the agency’s OIA response in January last year that they were motor vehicles.
Similarly, a notice issued by the agency said this ‘‘does not change the regulations governing the use of escooters, rather it clarifies their interpretation’’.
However, the notice, titled EScooters (Declaration Not to be Motor Vehicles), states: ‘‘The purpose of this notice is to remove the requirement for scooters . . . to be registered as motor vehicles if they are also fitted with lowpowered electric auxiliary propulsion motors.’’
An earlier notice from 2013 said: ‘‘For the avoidance of doubt, readers are advised that the district court has held that lowpowered electric scooters are not powerassisted cycles but are motor vehicles.’’
A Road User Rule supports the agency’s assertion that escooters are ‘‘wheeled recreational devices’’ which are allowed on footpaths if they have motors under 300W and to which registration and licensing do not apply.
In 2018, an official said any change to classification, such as of escooters, would be significant and require considerable investigation and consultation.
The agency said it had done no substantive research into escooters since 2004.
Escooters imports have skyrocketed from virtually nil in 2011 to 25,000 last year. — RNZ