E-scooters banned from cycle lanes

Christchurch and Auckland will soon be awash with electric scooters, but there’s one unexpected place you won’t be seeing them: a bike lane.

The scooters are classed as a ‘‘low powered vehicle’’ (despite a

27kmh top speed), which allows them to roam in a surprisingly wide range of places, including both the road and footpath.

Within the month, there will be hundreds of shared e-scooters in New Zealand’s two largest cities, as US-based Lime launches

1000 in Auckland and 700 in Christchurch.

The scooters can be rented using an app for $1 plus 30 cents per minute (the equivalent of

$18/hr) and can be left anywhere within a certain area.

But there’s one surprising place the scooters cannot go – the cycle lanes painted onto roads.

However, it’s only ‘‘cycle lanes’’ this applies to, and not ‘‘cycle paths’’, which are physically separated by a barrier or are off the road altogether.

Confused yet? The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) provided some clarity.

A spokeswoman said the scooters could be used ‘‘anywhere except the designated cycle lanes that are part of the road’’ – those cycle lanes painted onto the road surface with no barrier in between.

This is because those cycle lanes were ‘‘for the sole use of cyclists’’, the spokeswoman explained.

She said if there was any separation between bikes and the road, or the path was off the road altogether, it was a cycle path.

She said good, safe behaviour ‘‘remains the priority when people ride e-scooters’’ and anyone riding dangerously on the footpath or road could get warnings or fines from the police.

Despite a top speed of 27kmh, helmets are not compulsory when using e-scooters, which has some worried about how safe they are to use.