Electric Scooters - the next affordable mode of transport? 🛴

Electric scooters in the UK are in a weird area legally.

Currently, electric scooters are in a trial phase in the UK. But only if you live in an area that is part of the trial (see here). If you live in an area that isn’t on the list, then it’s illegal to use an electric scooter (rented or privately owned).

I don’t know why certain areas are not included in the trial, it only adds to the confusion when people are out using electric scooters where it’s illegal. London is an example where certain boroughs have signed up to the scheme and the Metropolitan Police have confiscated 3637 electric scooters.

So if you live in an area that is part of the trial…

• Can you rent them? Sure.
• Can you use the rented ones in public? You bet!
• Can you buy one? No problem!
• How about using the one I bought? NO.

Indeed, you can buy one, but you can’t use them on public roads, cycle paths etc. This is because the government has branded electric scooters as powered transporters, so all the laws and regulations that apply to motor vehicles are applied to electric scooters.

Let’s go back to renting one! But before you can even rent one…

• You need to have a provisional or full driving license
• The electric scooter needs to have motor insurance as well (but in the trial, this is covered by the company providing the electric scooter)
• You need to be aware of the rules

As a side note, if electric scooters are powered transporters, won’t they need MOTs done every year?

The trial ends in March 2022 (which I’m not sure anyone is really aware of). Which will (probably) end up with a consultation phase before any laws are brought in. So who knows when electric scooters will be legal? Or even if they become legal.

With the trial ending in a few months, and seeing the usage myself, I thought I’d share my thoughts on if electric scooters are beneficial and the next generation of affordable transport.

The good 👍

Reduces carbon in towns and cities

An interesting challenge is to get people out of the car and using other methods of transportation. And it seems electric scooters are doing just that.

Lime reports that:

• Every 4 lime rides takes a car off the road.
• Lime rides have prevented 50 million car trips

And Bird reports that

• 1.1 Million gallons of gas was saved in 2021
• And $100 Million was spent by Bird users at local shops and restaurants.

So electric scooters are good for the economy and the environment!

Electric scooters are affordable. Rented or privately owned

The cost of renting scooters is fairly low. Lime will charge £1 to unlock and then 20p per minute.

Spin offer passes available where 1 hour costs £5 up to 1 month for £60 (where if there are 31 days in a month, that works out at roughly £2 a day!)

Sure, you can’t use a privately owned electric scooter but you can still buy one! And taking a look at Halfords you can get the Xiaomi Mi Essential for £349 (at this time of writing)

Having affordable, new transport is important. Electric cars are still expensive, and will be for some time. The new electric Honda E starts at an eye watering £29K. While a petrol powered Vauxhall Corsa starts at £17380.

When the ban on sales of petrol/diesel cars comes starts in 2030, electric cars need to come down in price dramatically in order for them to be affordable. This could be where electric scooters can provide an affordable and accessible form of transport.

As the technology becomes more available, the prices should come down.

Plenty of rented scooters available

There are three different providers around. In my local area; Lime, Ginger and Spin. There are always plenty of scooters available when I go out, so you won’t spend much time looking for one.

I tend to see that a majority of scooters are available in places such as the train station near me and the shopping centre (which makes sense given the amount of people who tend to go to these areas)

People use them!

For shared transport to work, people need to use it. And I have seen many people use electric scooters in my hometown. It’ll be interesting to see how people will react when the trial ends.

The bad 👎

People break the rules

I’ve seen two people on an electric scooter many times and I’ve seen a few people ride electric scooters on the opposite side of the road. These examples of dangerous usage could cause safety concerns.

This is linked to my next point…

Safety issues

There have been reports of crashes and deaths involving electric scooters.

Helmets aren’t a legal requirement but are encouraged (which just seems crazy to me).

Even Transport for London have banned them from their network after a number of electric scooters caught fire!

Negative image

Some will think that electric scooters are a nuisance and cause problems to pedestrians. I’ve seen first hand at how some riders of electric scooters don’t ring the bell to alert others to their presence.

However, the electric scooter providers do an excellent job at offering safety documentation.

Vandalism

This was bound to happen, right? And Lime discovered this for themselves as people were peeling off the QR codes from their vehicles.

In fact, when Santander launched it’s shared bike scheme in my hometown back in 2016, the scheme was at risk as bikes were being vandalised. They said that over half of the bikes had to be repaired. This was about a year after the scheme had launched.

In 2019, a man in Florida was arrested for cutting the brakes on electric scooters.

In my view, this is probably one of the major weaknesses to shared modes of transport.

You might live in an area where you don’t have electric scooters nearby

I was using the Lime application and was searching for nearby electric scooters. I soon discovered that there are some estates that won’t allow parking.

This could be for a variety of reasons, but regardless, if you live in estate where you can’t find an electric scooter nearby, you may need to walk to another estate to find one (at which point, you may have gotten a taxi or a bus)

What can be improved? 🤔

Stricter enforcement on those who break the rules

If electric scooters are considered powered transporters, then riders need to be aware of the consequences should they break the rules.

Wear a helmet!

This needs to be a legal requirement. At the moment, it’s ‘suggested’ that you wear one. Which is pretty crazy if you ask me. An electric scooter can go up to 15MPH which is pretty quick, so you should be wearing a helmet!

Keep the 15MPH speed limit

I can’t imagine going on an electric scooter at 20MPH, that sounds scary! (I guess this goes with the point of wearing a helmet!)

What next? 🛴

What’s next for electric scooters? After the trial ends, it’ll be up to the government to decide.

I think with some improvements to the rules, electric scooters would be an excellent mode of transport. But there is a lot of work to do before electric scooters can become legal.

Thanks for reading! 👏