RNIB should stop taking e-scooter money
I HAVE been puzzled by how little we have heard from the Royal National Institute of
Blind People (RNIB) about the e-scooter menace. After all, these nasty little motorised toys, so often ridden on the pavement, are more of a threat to the blind and partially sighted than they are to almost anyone else.
Well, now I learn that the RNIB – an organisation I normally much admire – has been taking fees from e-scooter companies for ‘consultancy’. They told me: ‘We do provide consultancy services for which we
charge.’ But when I asked how much these fees were, they responded: ‘We can’t go into any detail of those charges.’ When I said this might have affected their attitude towards e-scooters, they said it didn’t.
They argued: ‘While we work with e-scooter operators to make the industry more inclusive, that doesn’t stop us from campaigning on key aspects of the e-scooter debate and in being vocal that there are behaviours, such as pavement riding, that cannot be tolerated. RNIB believes a combination of campaigning, influencing, training and consultancy provides the best chance of bringing about change.’ Well, I disagree. If e-scooters are legalised, they’ll be everywhere. The police, largely absent from the streets, will do next to nothing about it. Smaller organisations
than the RNIB have been warning that legalising e-scooters will make our roads and pavements very much more dangerous.
But they have had little impact on Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. He shows every sign of having made his mind up to unleash this extra misery on our streets next year. Alleged ‘experiments’ all over the country are undermining the existing law, under which they are completely banned. Even the police are confused about what the law is. When I confronted an illegal e-scooter rider speeding along a footpath last week, he sneered it would soon be legal, so I could get lost.
Meanwhile, a slick PR campaign, falsely claiming e-scooters are green and will reduce car use, is working. If only the full power of the RNIB was directed against it, I think things would change. If they will stop taking e-scooter money, and mount such a campaign, I will happily rattle a tin for them, to help make up for what they have lost.