e-scooter trial

[barakta]

ScotRail who ban mobility scooters are getting challenged by disabled people.

As Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson (wheelchair using peer) pointed out last week at the transport select committee, several health and safety incidents happen to disabled customers ALL the time on the railway, complaints are made, nothing is fixed, issues continue. Yet 1 or 2 incidents happen where a disabled customer's mobility aid allegedly causes a H&S concern and suddenly they are banned.

There are e-addons for wheelchairs which turn a wheelchair into effectively an e-trike without pedals. These have no legal status at the moment despite being essential mobility kit. Tanni and one of the other witnesses at the transport committee use them, in part to 'walk' rather than using buses/taxis with risk of being refused access.

Government needs to speed up their process of regulations as new technologies are outpacing them by decades. See also flickering LED lighting and lack of any standards to avoid harming humans.

[grams]

It shows that if they hadn't used a scooter, 37% would have walked, 19% would have used a car, 14% would have gone by bus, 10% would have cycled, 2% by other public transport and 2% would have used a motorbike.

If people are paying for Voi scooters (which IIRC aren’t especially cheap) it sounds like they’re making non-carring significantly more convenient than previous modes were.

You were never going to get existing car owners to switch, especially for a temporary scheme. You may succeed in getting non-car owners to non car own a bit longer.

[Kim]

Presumably a decent proportion of the "would have used a car" cases are in fact "would have used a taxi".

Not that getting people out of taxis onto scooters is a bad thing, but it's a different use-case than private motoring.  People might take a Voi to the station, or to a night out or whatever, but aren't going to be doing the shopping or school run on one.

[Cudzoziemiec]

One of the most frequent use cases I see is fleets of YoungPersons heading into town on a Friday or Saturday night, which suggests they're replacing buses or taxis on the way out and taxis or stumbling on the way home. Or paying a nominated driver (or getting a lift in a pissed-up mate's jalopy). In the last case, fewer drunk drivers has to be a good thing. Yes, there will be an increase in drunken non-walking, but only at a maximum of 15mph and on a light vehicle.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Also, I continue to be impressed by how much passing space the average driver gives them.

[Lightning Phil]

Also, I continue to be impressed by how much passing space the average driver gives them.

The WTF factor and unpredictable nature of what the scooter rider will do, where as for cycling wearing a helmet, the driver erroneously assumes they will head in a predictable straight line with no deviation for obstacles.

I get good passing space on my recumbent as well, for the most part.

[Kim]

I just wish they'd get the hang of realising they need a lack of oncoming traffic, as well as passing space.  Three incidents on today's ride!

[tom_e]

It shows that if they hadn't used a scooter, 37% would have walked, 19% would have used a car, 14% would have gone by bus, 10% would have cycled, 2% by other public transport and 2% would have used a motorbike.

I think these numbers are in some ways slightly disappointing, but not by themselves a good enough reason to object to scooters. 

If people want to take advantage of a new device which is both effective transport and fairly good environmentally, then they should have the freedom to do so.  If this creates too much risk to other road users (or themselves) then that is a good enough reason to add restrictions.  But the lack of 'virtue' by replacing sufficient cars isn't a good enough reason to keep something illegal, to my mind.

[grams]

It’s worse than that. There’s a whole group of cycling campaigners who think scooters should stay illegal because they aren’t “active travel” and therefore just as bad as cars.

Forgetting that “active travel” is a euphemism that they adopted to make cycle schemes more palatable.

[Kim]

It’s worse than that. There’s a whole group of cycling campaigners who think scooters should stay illegal because they aren’t “active travel” and therefore just as bad as cars.

Yes, this irks me.  (With the exception of where 'active travel' schemes are run on public health grounds - the Big Birmingham Bikes were funded on that basis, which is fair enough.)

Last time I looked, the CTC's position was that they wanted scooters restricted to a lower speed than e-bikes so that people would chose e-bikes in preference and do some pedalling.  This seems short-sighted, as scooters create the same demand for safe infrastructure.  IMHO it's less confusing for other road users (particularly pedestrians) if all the small electric things have the same speed restriction.

[Adam]

I'm a bit conflicted!  On the one hand, e-scooters aren't going to improve people's state of health the way walking and cycling would do (so obesity levels will continue to rise).  However, I can see it means fewer cars around, which is good. 

The last House of Commons committee looking at the data so far recommended legalisation, but on-road use only plus helmets.  So I reckon in a year's time they will allow them for on-road use only, but ditch the helmet requirement.  So if some users do then use the road, then hopefully it will slow down vehicles a bit.

[road-runner]

Looking at Dutch and Danish town centres makes me think that the UK should be moving in the same direction so that masses of pedestrians, cyclists and speed-restricted e-machines have safer environmnents while not being allowed to use the fast roads - A roads, trunk roads, motorways.

In the Dutch town I looked at I had this image in my mind of a tree, with the trunk road bringing the heavy traffic into the town and branching off into car parks or into delivery roads behind shops, leaving the leafy narrower streets to carry the smaller, slower personal modes of transport right to the edge of pedestrian zones. It must have taken years of good planning and implementation; I am truly impressed.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The last House of Commons committee looking at the data so far recommended legalisation, but on-road use only plus helmets.  So I reckon in a year's time they will allow them for on-road use only, but ditch the helmet requirement.  So if some users do then use the road, then hopefully it will slow down vehicles a bit.

Almost all the e-scooter use is on road already. Round here anyway. After all, the pavements are full of pedestrians, who move in an altogether slower speed category than anything with wheels (other than prams etc). At least, if "use" means riding; what they do on the pavements is parking, and that is totally haphazard – quite a lot of hazard!

[Adam]

Looking at Dutch and Danish town centres makes me think that the UK should be moving in the same direction so that masses of pedestrians, cyclists and speed-restricted e-machines have safer environmnents while not being allowed to use the fast roads - A roads, trunk roads, motorways.

In the Dutch town I looked at I had this image in my mind of a tree, with the trunk road bringing the heavy traffic into the town and branching off into car parks or into delivery roads behind shops, leaving the leafy narrower streets to carry the smaller, slower personal modes of transport right to the edge of pedestrian zones. It must have taken years of good planning and implementation; I am truly impressed.

Definitely.  They've logically looked at classifying roads as either through roads connecting places, local access only, and distributor roads connecting the other two.  And for local access, people are put first rather than vehicles, hence the lovely fietsstraat where cycling will get priority.

It just won't happen here unfortunately.  The concept of a shared use path, where you're required to stop and give way whenever it gets to a side road is as good as it gets, and that's so engrained in the system. Yes, parts of some towns and city centres have done more.  But it's a drop in the ocean.

Even after Covid, cycling in the UK is stuck on an average 2% of all trips which hasn't significantly improved in decades.  As cycling is a niche method of transportation, with the majority of the population not interested (and lacking empathy), there's no incentive to change priorities. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Thanks, Adam.

Perhaps cyclists should welcome more vehicles that travel at similar speeds so that planners have a critical mass to plan foŕ not just a meagre 2%.

This is my attitude too, based on what I see/feel from the presence of e-scooters on the roads round me.

[Adam]

Thanks, Adam.

Perhaps cyclists should welcome more vehicles that travel at similar speeds so that planners have a critical mass to plan foŕ not just a meagre 2%.

Possibly yes.  Although most of the e-scooters I see seem to be going at quite a bit more than 15mph.  As there's so little segregated infrastructure outside of London, with it mostly being narrow shared use paths, it's a little daunting for pedestrians & cyclists to have one of those things zipping past you. 

[fd3]

More the reason to legalise and regulate.
The illegal users will persist no matter, but if they are legally available it becomes more work to buy an unregulated one

[Kim]

Paris has the right idea: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/06/30/paris-mayor-enters-fray-between-e-bikes-and-pedestrians-by-fighting-drivers

[davelodwig]

Scooters are everywhere in Europe, both the old school manual ones and electric ones. Privately owned and hire.

You can buy them in a high street shop and just use them and people do in vast numbers to get to places.  I do not understand this country's reticence to allow them to be used, everyone else seems to be managing just fine.

We even saw pay per use e-bike charging in Switzerland.

[drossall]

I noticed on the station yesterday, on the way into work, a sign announcing that e-scooters and the like are not permitted on trains and stations, owing to concerns over battery safety. I thought it a bit odd, on that basis, that e-bikes are still allowed. Are the batteries different, or are the train companies being somewhat disingenuous?

Not that it makes a difference to me, as my Brompton is very definitely non-e, but it just made me curious. I can certainly understand that some products, from some less-reliable manufacturers, might have safety issues, and I've heard of a recent house fire, sadly with casualties, that's being put down to this - but I'd have expected bikes and scooters to use similar batteries.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm not entirely sure of the reasoning. I did hear an announcement on the local train yesterday, which explicitly stated that e-bikes would continue to be carried. No mention on the London train (both GWR) or that I noticed anywhere on the stations. I rarely seen e-scooters on that line in fact, though I'm sure they're commoner on other lines.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Paris has the right idea: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/06/30/paris-mayor-enters-fray-between-e-bikes-and-pedestrians-by-fighting-drivers

Totalement. And/though even she says "Plus aucune piste cyclable sur les trottoirs !"

Ed: But 40% reduction in motor traffic and 45% in pollution speaks for itself.

[tom_e]

The train companies have always tried to ban bikes when they could get away with it too, so I wouldn't discount opportunism.

But in this case I think the problem is driven by a lack of regulation.  There are no legal private scooters, so absolutely no incentive to bother making safe products to those legal private scooter rules.  So those available aren't bothering, and we have house fires and dead people.

But hey, there are big e-scooter hire companies with legally protected monopolies, so that's great.  We actually have police newsletters to schools, spending money and pissing away goodwill on trying to enforce those legal monopolies, rather than enforcing some sensible consumer legislation to try and make the things safer.

[grams]

The bans started after a couple of scooters caught fire on tube trains and spooked TfL.

Thus far no e-bikes have caught fire on a train that I know of, but it’s surely only a matter of time.

[Wowbagger]

Do mobile phone and laptop batteries never catch fire?