Madrid set to ban e-scooters as UK organisation calls for legalisation
Madrid is the latest city to ban e-scooters rented through mobile apps, Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida said. The mayor of Spain’s capital said that the companies including Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility had failed to implement limits on clients’ circulation and control parking.
E-scooters have increasingly come under fire over safety concerns. In July, Germany’s federal statistics offics said deaths and injuries involving e-scooters rose in 2023.
This follows the decision by Melbourne’s CBD to close its rental e-scooter scheme after the council voted to end contracts with operators. The lord mayor, Nicholas Reece, said the scooters presented an unacceptable safety risk to the city and were “shameful”. “We need a fundamental reset,” he said, adding that he had originally supported their arrival two-and-a-half years ago, but had “run out of patience”.
Meanwhile, in the UK a coalition of organisations is calling for the new Labour government to urgently legalise e-scooters and accelerate the move to greener transport. In an open letter to Transport Secretary Louise Haigh and her ministers, they say a new legal status is the only way to resolve the problems caused by “entirely unregulated” privately-owned e-scooters being ridden on public roads.
The letter, which was organised by Collaborative Mobility UK (CoMoUK) says e-scooters could be legalised through the creation of a new “low powered zero emission vehicle class” which could also apply to other forms of transport.
It says giving e-scooters legal status is “the only solution to the situation with private e-scooters, which are entirely unregulated and unlawful to ride on the public highway, but can be legally bought and are very often illegally ridden”.
Says Richard Dilks, chief executive of CoMoUK:
“The new Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, has told her department that she wants to ‘move fast and fix things’. We say: excellent, let’s start by expanding shared e-scooter trials and, ultimately, legalising e-scooters.
“By clearing up the ongoing uncertainty around their status on the UK’s roads, ministers can give this cheap, flexible and green mode of transport a long-term future.”
Newcastle is one city that has just unveiled plans to extend its e-scooter trial for another two years despite concerns about safety and “inconsiderate” parking. It has agreed to to extend the licence of e-scooter provider Neuron until 2026 after becoming more popular with local residents.
Elsewhere in the UK, however, it’s a different story with TIER-Dott recently stopping its long-term rental trial of e-scooters in Bristol while safety risks are assessed. And Zipp Mobility stopping its e-scooter trials in Taunton, Minehead and Yeovil due to an unexpected supplier issue despite them running successfully since 2020.
EDITOR’S VIEW
E-Scooters are a great way to get around and we fully support their safe use in order to pursue a more environmentally-friendly transport system. While part of the issue is around their illegal use on roads and pavements, which can obviously cause accidents to pedestrians and other road users, it seems too that the legal rental providers are also to blame. All too often you see rental e-scooters and e-bikes littering our pavements parks and other greeen spaces, providing obstacles to pedestrians, including wheelchair users. In our opinion, they need to get their own house in order first before the issue of legalisation, which does have some merit, is ready to be discussed by government. This means collecting dumped e-scooter and e-bikes much more quickly than they do at present and introducing safety features to help prevent further unnecessary accidents.
