Forget your car, electric scooters are the future of inner-city travel

Travelling to work the other day, I was nearly knocked down by a fellow commuter whizzing past on an electric scooter. Immaculately dressed, poised serenely on her two-wheeled chariot as she sped gracefully to work, she seemed the epitome of modern mobility, and I gazed at her rather enviously – even as I scuttled out of her way.

But what should we do with her and her ilk? Exorcise them from the road – no more near-misses for pedestrians like me – or encourage them as they glide along our streets?

It’s a question that is, or should be, exercising our transport mandarins, not least after the news this week of two serious crashes involving e-scooters, one involving a 14-year-old boy who is now critically ill in hospital, the other in which a woman died after being hit by a lorry at a roundabout.

Reaction to both cases from some quarters has been predictable: critics point out that e-scooters are currently illegal on our roads and pavements (punishable by six points on a driving licence and a £300 fine), that they are dangerous for riders and other road users, and that they are, increasingly, the scourge of urban life.

All of which may be true. But then consider this: that an estimated 40,000 deaths are caused annually by air pollution and that said pollution inhibits cognitive function in our children, lodges tiny particles in our hearts and can lead to a range of associated health problems. Our urban centres are clogged with queues of cars and lorries pumping this stuff out. Perhaps the rise of the e-scooter could go some way towards addressing these problems.

Cyclists and pedestrians may cry that more of these vehicles will cause havoc. Car-loving libertarians will fear that the state, emboldened by the green lobby, will use any success that e-scooters enjoy as an

excuse to further curb their freedom to jump behind the wheel and hit the open road. But have you ever tried driving down London’s Embankment? That’s no open road – it’s hell, and it’s killing us all. The reality is, as our cities become ever more crowded, we need an alternative to cars – and small electric vehicles are the future.

The Government seems, cautiously, to be cottoning on to this. It recently released its Future of Urban Mobility Strategy, which examines how to make low-carbon transport cheaper, safer and more reliable. It contains no plans to change the law with regard to scooters, but acknowledges that it is “essential that people have the chance to make the most of the opportunities from micromobility”.

Perhaps it might want to look to Paris where, reports of road chaos notwithstanding (it is France, after all), in the first four months of introducing e-scooters, 70 per cent of users said they travelled by cars less. Or look at US cities, from Dallas to LA, where e-scooters have become the preferred mode of transport for commuters: cheap, easy to use and green (as long as you can avoid the potholes).

But our policymakers need to move faster. E-scooters – and e-bikes, hoverboards and the rest – aren’t going to go away. Why would they, when they get you from A to B in a crowded urban centre quickly and efficiently? Their users need to know where they stand. That means rules on where they’re allowed to go; bike lanes or similar that are safe to use, and policies that encourage, not punish.

We all want to sail quickly and gracefully to work each day. It’s a test for our Government to work out how we can.