The silent menace racing down a pavement near you
They can hit 50mph, are illegal to use in ANY public space and have been blamed for hundreds of accidents – and even deaths. So what are police doing about...
TRiders can be seen daily... every one is breaking the law
HE man in the bobble hat was doing 50mph in a 40mph limit, weaving from lane to lane to get ahead of slower traffic on the dual carriageway and performing stunts as he did so.
But the most eye-catching thing about the reckless driver at rush hour on Dundee’s Kingsway was his mode of transport. He was standing on an e-scooter – a motorised version of the toy toddlers use in playparks.
Approaching a roundabout, he stood on one leg. He did several wheelies. Then, to reduce wind resistance, he crouched down on his tiny vehicle as it zipped along the highway.
The motorists he overtook could scarcely believe their eyes.
One passenger, who videoed the e-scooter rider on her phone, said it was the most dangerous thing she had seen on a road.
‘He came up behind our car, we didn’t know what it was,’ she said. ‘He overtook us so quickly and we were doing the speed limit – 40mph – so he was obviously going a lot faster.’
Recently, another video emerged of a brazen youth riding an e-scooter along the hard shoulder of the M8 in Glasgow – while chatting on his phone and carrying a polythene bag.
It will surprise no one to learn that the riders in both of the videos were breaking the law.
Yet the burgeoning sales of e-scooters and their increasing ubiquity on roads and footpaths suggest few users either know or care what the law says.
Weeks after the Dundee incident, another rider – also helmet-less – went for a spin on an e-scooter in Troon.
Grabbing the vehicle’s handlebars, she steadied herself as the electric motor kicked in, propelling her along a public footpath at rather more modest speeds than the daredevil in Dundee.
This was Nicola Sturgeon. She may have imagined she was providing innocent amusement for those gathered to see her on the campaign trail in May. In fact, she was breaking the law.
That much has been set out clearly and repeatedly by Police Scotland.
E-scooters are banned on all public roads, pavements and cycle paths. The only place where they can be used legally is on private land – and then only with the landowner’s permission.
The question is whether anyone is listening. Certainly, it appears the First Minister was not.
She is far from alone. In Scotland’s largest cities, e-scooter riders can be seen daily, nonchalantly threading their way through the people on pavements and pedestrian precincts. Many are professionals on their way to work, dodging the perceived Covid risk on public transport.
The vehicles are a staple of cycle paths, too, while the speedier versions are joining the traffic on the roads.
Every one of them is breaking the law – which leads many to wonder how rigorously it is being enforced.
Across the UK, sales are brisk. National retailer Halfords saw a 450 per cent increase in purchases during a three-week period last year.
One independent retailer in Edinburgh says he sells an average of 50-60 a month. ‘High performance’ e-scooters capable of 40mph sell faster than he can order them in.
Do the buyers all have access to tracts of private land where they can ride them?
Rory Boyd, who launched his Scoot-A-Boot shop in the capital last year, does not believe so. Many of his customers ride off on their escooters as soon as they have bought them, regardless of his reminders about the law.
He says: ‘I’ve got professional, high-net-worth individuals, happily riding around on scooters because they don’t deem breaking the law in this way as offensive as, say, going into a shop and stealing an item of clothing.’
Neither, it would seem, do they deem the likelihood of prosecution to be high. While Police Scotland say they do not compile figures for the escooter crime, few are thought to have faced charges.
One 29-year-old man was charged with putting himself, pedestrians and others at risk in St Michael’s Bridge Road in Dumfries in March after being seen riding a Kugoo G2 Pro e-scooter capable of 31mph. Police seized the vehicle.
But he is the exception rather than the rule.
Little wonder, perhaps, when their scooters carry no identifying features such as registration plates and, unlike a car or motorbike, can be picked up and removed from the road in seconds. Unsurprisingly, accident numbers involving e-scooters are spiralling.
The National Federation of the Blind in the UK describes them as ‘terrifying’.
Chief Superintendent Simon Ovens of the Met’s Transport Policing Command says they are ‘absolute death traps’. The toll bears out his verdict.
Weeks ago, scooter rider George McGowan, 19, died after a crash with a car in Portsmouth, Hampshire.
A 54-year-old man also died three weeks after hitting a fence in Brighton, Sussex.
In June, Shakur Pinnock, 20, collided with a car while on an e-scooter in Wolverhampton in the Midlands and died six days later.
Last September, Julian Thomas, 55, from Swansea, was killed when his e-scooter hit a parked car and, in 2019,
YouTube star Emily Hartridge, 35, was thrown under a lorry and killed when an underinflated tyre caused her to lose control in South London.
There is also evidence that the machines have become the transport of choice for criminals, facilitating robberies and drug deals.
Several police forces have recorded surges in crimes related to e-scooters, with suspects using them to escape.
E-scooters were involved in 574 recorded crimes in London between July 1, 2020 and April 30 this year, according to the Met.
Norfolk Constabulary listed 120 reports, Merseyside Police more than 100, Cleveland Police 81, Derbyshire
Constabulary 27 and Staffordshire Police 23. What, then, are Police Scotland doing to curb e-scooter lawlessness north of the Border? The force has restated the legal position often – before and after Miss Sturgeon was pictured flouting the law. In June, they also wrote to parents through schools, telling them of the rules. These are that e-scooters are classed as ‘powered transporters’ which cannot be used on public roads without meeting requirements including insurance, technical standards, vehicle tax, registration, driver licensing and the use of relevant safety equipment. No framework for these requirements exists as yet for e-scooters.
The Highway Act, dating back to 1835, makes it an offence to ‘lead or draw a carriage on a pavement’ – a rule applying to almost all vehicles, with the exception of mobility scooters and wheelchairs.
The Road Traffic Act 1988 forbids powered transporters from using footpaths, cycle lanes, cycle tracks, bridleways or restricted byways.
While Mr Boyd considers it his duty to flag up the restrictions on his website, invoices and in-store, others are more circumspect.
This summer, national retailer Evans Cycles’ website was describing e-scooters as ‘a solution to the difficulties of busy city living, providing an easy form of transport for commuters, sightseers and everybody in-between.’
Its website has been changed to reflect the fact that the vehicles are illegal in public places. Yet, to some, they remain highly desirable. In Edinburgh, Mr Boyd staked an inheritance on launching his e-scooter business last year.
He gambled that the UK would fall into line with EU countries which largely permit the use of e-scooters on public roads.
France allows children as young as eight to use them but limits their speed to 12.5mph and insists all under-12s wear helmets.
Germany and Sweden set the same speed limit, while Italy sets a minimum age of 14 and maximum speed of 15.5mph.
That is also the speed limit in Belgium, where e-scooters must have mirrors fitted, and in Spain where insurance is required.
‘I’ve staked a business on the law changing,’ says Mr Boyd. ‘We also sell e-bikes because I thought it would be potentially business suicide to run on one product that isn’t legal at the moment.
‘I am desperate not just for the laws to change but even to be given the opportunity of trials up here… but it doesn’t seem like Scotland is taking part soon.’
Trials are taking place in several London areas and in pockets across England, including Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle and Norwich. However, they involve rental e-scooters only and require that users have a driving licence – which would preclude non-driver Miss Sturgeon.
At Scoot-A-Boot, an EU-compliant e-scooter limited to 15.5mph can be bought for £300-£400, while ‘off-road’ models with top speeds of 40mph sell for £800 to £1,000.
The problem, as Mr Boyd sees it, is that with no regulation other than a blanket ban, people are making their own minds up about where and how to use them.
He says the UK Government has a golden opportunity to learn from legislation teething issues in other countries by introducing robust safety rules which would nevertheless allow the market to grow.
‘Wearing helmets is an absolute must,’ he says. ‘But I don’t believe it should take a 16-year-old or above to ride an e-scooter because the capabilities of these things are the same as a kid on a bicycle.’
Indeed, 14-year-olds and upwards can ride an electric bike in the UK anywhere a normal bike can be ridden. Why, he asks, are e-scooters proscribed in the same places? There is backing for that view.
In May, a Panelbase survey found 47 per cent of Scots favoured the legal use of e-scooters in public places, while 27 per cent opposed it and a quarter were unsure.
Yet even the Scottish Greens, the most vociferous party in getting people out of cars and into more environmentally friendly forms of transport, remain sceptical.
A spokesman said evidence from Europe showed that only 4 per cent of e-scooter journeys displaced car use. He said: ‘Instead, they seem to be a more dangerous and nuisance alternative to bikes or public transport.’
He added: ‘We need to rethink how to make our town centres cleaner and more accessible for everyone, and that includes vulnerable pedestrians.
‘This means increasing space for walking and wheeling and encouraging greater use of public transport instead of car use. It is not yet clear what role, if any, e-scooters could play in that, especially those that go at dangerous speeds.’
Police Scotland told the Mail they were raising awareness on e-scooters through community engagement and social media.
A spokesman added: ‘Officers locally may be engaging with retailers, but there is not a national approach with regards to engaging with retailers specifically.’
On the issue of Miss Sturgeon’s infraction, police are understood to have decided it ‘would not be proportionate to consider charges against the First Minister’.
Both the Scottish Government and SNP HQ were unwilling to engage on Miss Sturgeon’s e-scooter ride. Indeed, when asked to do so, the Government refused to commit to any view on the vehicles.
A Transport Scotland spokesman said: ‘Whilst the use of powered transporters and decisions around their introduction and associated legislative changes are primarily a matter for the UK Government, additional legislation and guidance would be required in Scotland to allow trials.
‘The UK Government has signalled its intention to publish proposals in 2022 for potential further legalisation of e-scooters beyond the trials. The Scottish Government will consider any such proposals and continue to monitor trends to inform future policy.’
In the meantime, sales of the nation’s most popular illicit vehicles will continue. So will the police warnings. And, if recent experience is anything to go by, the riders will carry on regardless.
Transport of choice for criminals