Segways were never legalised and these probably won't be either as whether a change in the law could contribute to more deaths on the road will settle the argument from the perspective of the government and police. Your average e-scooter user - a young person in an urban area - has no experience with moving traffic (except for crossing the road) and would be on a vehicle that is slower and less visible than a bike. That doesn't scream 'Legalise it today!' and it would take good evidence, such as a fatality rate over several years that is proportionately equivalent to that of pedestrians, and some serious lobbying to overcome that resistance.
E-Scooter discussion after fatal collision
- Thread starter ianh
- Start date
Not likely, the small wheel size was most likely a contributory factor in this case. There is a reason road and mtb bikes have nice big wheelsThat's one of the reasons they are not really safe for the public highways at the moment.
Yup
If anyone here has ever tried electric mobility scooters (I used to have to test my mum's out when I'd fixed it*
), you can see a huge difference in how they handle things like relatively small potholes and changes in road surface between smaller wheels, larger one, solids and pneumatic.The smaller the wheels the less control you had when you hit something, and that was with the advantage of having at least two more wheels that hadn't hit it yet and direct control over the direction of the wheels (it could get very tiring fighting the tiller if the path was badly laid or over grass).
with a bike the way you ride it means that even if you hit a pothole you still have control of the wheel to a fair degree (as you've got a physical connection between yourself and the wheel through the stearing system), and in the worst case you've got your legs in position to simply drop to regain balance or offer some more control.
Escooters/segways/hoverboards all tend to have tiny wheels, or a complete lack of human control to overcome uneven surfaces, they're generally designed to work basically in shopping centres/airports etc or on well maintained main paths.
They're not intended for road use.
*I had a regular route that let me give it a run for about five to ten minutes and included several paved surfaces, a couple of dropped kerbs, grass and tarmac.
so there was another bad/non-fatal accident a couple of days later 14year old ... are the parents not responsible. - didn't see that come up in the thread
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...emily-hartridge-death-battersea-a9005416.html
still Boris is promising increased policing ... 50K jobs should keep Sadiq happy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...emily-hartridge-death-battersea-a9005416.html
still Boris is promising increased policing ... 50K jobs should keep Sadiq happy.
Not likely, the small wheel size was most likely a contributory factor in this case. There is a reason road and mtb bikes have nice big wheels
Well there was and still is the brompton and moulton bikes.
But they always did have the problem that small wheels get deflected a lot more by vertical changes in the ground. The taller the wheel the greater the height of objects it can reliably roll over without jolting. Still, even small wheeled bikes have large wheels compared to electric scooters.
Then there's the other thing that all upright bikes have a lot of ground clearance by default. A brief look at my bike says 3 inches with pedal all the way down (not accounting for leaning) and 8 inches to the bottom of the chain guard with crank arms flat. Electric scooters and boards have an inch at best all the time? (can they go over a speed bump?)
Roads will never be perfect, potholes, ironworks and debris in the road are what all road users deal with. For extra excitement you can encounter the same when concealed by puddles (that's another thing, how exactly do you handle standing water when your vehicle is a couple of inches tall). It sucks to hit a 2-3 inch crater in the road while on a bike but when your wheels are up to 29 inches in diameter it's quite manageable. Licensed vehicles have generally smaller diameter wheels but vastly more volume and suspension so they dampen it differently.
Such issues of being quality vehicles only in excellent conditions will have to be taken into consideration if its legality is reviewed.
If the answer is having to spend vastly more and have more downtime repairing roads to accommodate the fragility of a trending transport type then that's a really big compromise.
If it's dodged by saying "on your own head be it" then that's not a worthy decision at all and is worse than leaving it illegal because it acknowledges problems with safety and encourages use anyway.
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Poland, Hungary, here in Zurich and other parts of Europe have these e-scooters without any or minimal problems.
Why does when something like this comes to the UK, accidents happen, all these rules and regulations come in then more than likely it gets banned or put under some form of tax?
This is why the UK cant have nice things, while other countries do.
Why does when something like this comes to the UK, accidents happen, all these rules and regulations come in then more than likely it gets banned or put under some form of tax?
This is why the UK cant have nice things, while other countries do.
We have the lowest rates of road accidents in Europe. I'd say we're doing it right.
The rules and regulations haven't come in to deal with e-scooters. You can't drive a motorised vehicle of any description on a highway unless the driver and vehicle meet the legal requirements or it is specifically exempt (e.g. a mobility scooter), as whoever first decided to sell e-scooters in the UK would have been aware.
Good little FT video here where he tries ebikes, escooters and eboards.
Interiews an escooter rider who was stopped this week after the crack down too.
https://www.ft.com/content/7da23ad4...GKy8oFvy_KBa-7_HORqiQLH3pVZnE_2_CrmhJYGuzZFJQ
Interiews an escooter rider who was stopped this week after the crack down too.
https://www.ft.com/content/7da23ad4...GKy8oFvy_KBa-7_HORqiQLH3pVZnE_2_CrmhJYGuzZFJQ
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2005
- Posts
- 12,668
Have we managed to reach 10 reasons why these silly little scooters should be made legal/kept illegal ?
No different to riding an electric bike, so just an arbitrary legal distinction.
little detail published, but seems the roundabout where accident occurred was already controversial with segregated cyclist track and cars each with separate lights
https://road.cc/content/news/245299...first-segregated-roundabout-which-critics-had
there's a gif of layout here
https://road.cc/content/news/127295...complicated-london-segregated-roundabout-plan
as a cyclist, I (controversially) prefer to be on the road with cars not on cycle 'paths' with the encumberance of joining/leaving the real road, debris, inattentive cyclists etc etc.
EDIT: reminded by Florence thread ..... like the magic Roundabout
https://road.cc/content/news/245299...first-segregated-roundabout-which-critics-had
there's a gif of layout here
https://road.cc/content/news/127295...complicated-london-segregated-roundabout-plan
as a cyclist, I (controversially) prefer to be on the road with cars not on cycle 'paths' with the encumberance of joining/leaving the real road, debris, inattentive cyclists etc etc.
EDIT: reminded by Florence thread ..... like the magic Roundabout
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Weird, worked when redirected from facebook.
If you google My new commute? E-scooter, e-bike and e-board Financial Times, the link from google will get you to it.
Oh, I've driven that one. It really is bizarre, and strange if you've never encountered it before. I can see someone easily making a mistake while trying to interpret it.
Now THIS is an electric scooter!
https://www.facebook.com/2327803660790644/videos/327327811504368/
Looks like it could be a high production value **** take and a scam though - $139? Whose gonna risk it?
https://supermalls.seeuper.com/prod..._fPaaOcqtxFIETLJDZI8klJSPmcR5a_QIhFdUKe2T9x-0
https://www.facebook.com/2327803660790644/videos/327327811504368/
Looks like it could be a high production value **** take and a scam though - $139? Whose gonna risk it?
https://supermalls.seeuper.com/prod..._fPaaOcqtxFIETLJDZI8klJSPmcR5a_QIhFdUKe2T9x-0
More like a legal brick wall that prevents vehicles from being on the road without meeting standards or at least given an exemption on balance of positive effects vs considerably worse features than mainstream licensed vehicles.
Electric bikes do have the legal paperwork these days and they got it by piggybacking on existing acceptance of pushbikes because they physically are pushbikes, complete with working pedals, now with a motor bolted on.
Electric scooters can claim almost no relationship to a pushbike, can claim zero exercise benefits and its cousin the road legal mobility scooter is of no help in offering a useful precedent because it is larger, slower and has some basic safety features of a car.
So it's uphill the entire way to legally accept a small wheeled board with an upright handle as suitable for road use, while noting the basic design has almost zero capacity for safety features and has only slightly more presence than a pedestrian.
Without doubt the most naff looking vehicle I have ever seen in my entire life.Now THIS is an electric scooter!
https://www.facebook.com/2327803660790644/videos/327327811504368/
Looks like it could be a high production value **** take and a scam though - $139? Whose gonna risk it?
https://supermalls.seeuper.com/prod..._fPaaOcqtxFIETLJDZI8klJSPmcR5a_QIhFdUKe2T9x-0
Looks like a bit of old scaffold tubing and a couple wheels stuck on. Probably because that's what it is.