Give e-scooters a chance: they’re a ticket to freedom
What do we do we with a problem like e-scooters?
You may think the humble e-scooter is a thing of little importance. But it arouses great passions. The law on e-scooters is an ass, with a million people owning them but not legally allowed to use them, on either roads or pavements. It is legal to sell them but not to use them.
The issue is so politically divisive that in the run up to the General Election I was banned by Number 10 from even consulting on changing the law. The fear was that being soft on e-scooters would lose us seats up and down the country, as local protests erupt. I was accosted by MPs in the tea room in Parliament, outraged at rumours that I was not tough enough on this scourge of modern life.
So I have a confession – yes, I do like e-scooters, and have ridden them myself in many cities around the world. They are fun to ride with the wind in your face, and much quicker than walking. They are a cheap and convenient form of transport. They take people out of cars and reduce congestion, noise and pollution. I think people in Britain should be legally allowed to use them – under in the right conditions. So, I welcome the decision of Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, to move forwards on the issue. The question is, what should the conditions be?
The UK has the most restrictive laws on e-scooters in Europe. Our highway laws are archaic, from the early days of the motorcar, and strictly ban outright any new form of transport without a change to primary legislation. The only way that e-bikes (where human pedal power is augmented by an electric motor) were allowed was by a political sleight of hand, by which they were legally designated as ordinary bikes. There was little fuss because the public and road safety groups are used to the concept of bikes.
But e-scooters (without pedals) are new and unknown. The only legal way to use them on public land is as part of trials of rental e-scooters in certain towns and cities across the UK. The trials have helped us learn how people use e-scooters, and what the risks are, and have been repeatedly prolonged.
But I was not allowed to extend the trials to new areas. Towns asked to be able to start scooter trials (they are a source of revenue for councils), but the answer was “no”. A disabled woman pleaded with me to be allowed to use a child’s mobility e-scooter on a pavement. It was ludicrous and cruel that she was banned from using it, and I had to set up a whole workstream to try to get an exemption for disabled people (but the General Election intervened).
Most of the resistance to e-scooters comes quite rightly from concern about “e-litter”, where rental e-scooters are left cluttering up the pavement, an inconvenience to pedestrians and a danger to the visually impaired. But as other cities, such as Brussels, have shown, that is easily dealt with by requiring rental e-scooters to be left in designated spaces (the technology means riders physically cannot drop off an e-scooter outside a designated parking space).
The concern about e-litter is also irrelevant to the debate about the use of private e-scooters, since owners are not going to leave their own devices lying about on the pavement. The relevant concerns are essentially about ensuring private e-scooters are used safely – can they be ridden on pavements, what is the speed limit, should riders be required to wear helmets, should there be an age restriction, should riders have to have insurance, should they be registered with number plates and pay an annual licence fee like a car and should riders be required to have training, as with motor bikes?
On some of these issues the answer is clear. After some differences of approach, almost all European countries have now banned e-scooters from pavements, and that clearly should remain the case in the UK. On the other issues, different European countries have gone different ways – some require helmets and insurance, and some don’t. Most have age restrictions, but the allowed age varies (the most common is 14 years old).
Most European countries do not require registration, although the police everywhere push for it. I think a whole national scheme and bureaucracy requiring owners to register e-scooters, paid for by an annual licence fee, and enforced by a new regime of fines, is not justified by the benefits.
The general approach should be to copy the policies for ordinary bicycles, unless a change can be clearly justified by the evidence. If there is no legal requirement for riders of e-bikes or ordinary bikes to wear helmets, have insurance and be registered, so why should there be those requirements for riders of e-scooters?
As frequently reported in the press, there is concern about the safety of e-scooters, with some accidents resulting in deaths. The same obviously is true of ordinary bikes – we need to ensure any restrictions are proportionate to the risk. The data from the trails shows that almost all e-scooter accidents occur with riders who are novices, happening in the first five times they have ridden one.
The difference with bikes is that most people know how to ride bikes, because they grew up with them. If you unleashed a million bikes on a population who had never ridden them, then you would get far more bike accidents. The solution could be to require e-scooter riders to do a familiarity course, as with motorbikes, or lessons similar to that provided by the Bikeability training programme.
There are huge potential benefits from e-scooters, and it would be a shame if we remain the only European country where they are banned. We just need to make sure scooter trials stop the e-litter, and that e-scooters are used safely. It is time to give e-scooters a chance.
Anthony Browne is a former transport minister