No questions asked

Taking me to the Gosport Ferry on my way home from Portsmouth, my cousin deviated along the Southsea seafront where I saw two e-scooters being rode by teenagers. One stopped as a female shouted to them and the girl got on to the scooter with one of the boys and they rode off.

With the operator trumpeting the thousands of miles covered by these menaces and how they are replacing short car journeys, I would hazard a guess that very few of these toys are being used seriously, the greater use is for ‘fun’.

I am glad to see that PCC is now concerned about this project, and so they should be. However, I would suggest much of this is too little and too late.

Following a freedom of information request asking to see a copy of the risk assessment by council officers before approving this plan, and any subsequent method statement detailing how concerning issues were to be managed, it was received with a reply that there wasn’t one. Questions that should have been addressed with regards to the impact on the walking public for example, and details of how the operator was to validate those who were hiring and their legitimacy to ride these machines, none asked. It would appear this is all down to the operator. Lots of legal bumf about contracts and coin, but nothing to really determine who is ultimately responsible for protecting the public and ensuring their safety.

Some senior police officers have described these scooters as becoming the getaway vehicle of choice for some brands of criminals.

In London over 500 illegal scooters have reportedly been seized. An FOI request to Hampshire police asking how many had been seized was returned as no records are kept in simple form. Maybe one for you to sort out Donna, as here in Gosport these machines continue to illegally ride the roads and footpaths with impunity.

I raise a point for discussion to highlight the banality of the so-called ‘regulation’. Any person over the required age can apply for a provisional licence, this it seems is the sole legal requirement to hire a scooter, along with a mobile phone and bank account. There is no law thereafter for the hirer to have had any experience of riding or driving any form of powered transport prior to producing that new provisional licence.

Did nobody on the council look any further than the grants and eco virtuesignaling, or consider the possibility that human nature would overtake the plan. Voi must be classed as complicit in this flawed exercise.

B Nevill Gosport