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Daily Record
Daily Record
Politics
Chris McCall

Calls for e-scooters to be legalised across the UK 'to improve safety'

Calls have been made to legalise the use of e-scooters in public in a bid to improve their safety.

The devices can be bought legally but it is against the law in Scotland to use them in any public space such as a road or footpath.

Despite their legal status sales of e-scooters have rocketed in recent years and police last year warned Scots parents not to buy them for their children as they are "not toys".

But manufacturers are now calling on the UK Government to bring forward legislation that would create a new powered light vehicle class.

In a letter to ministers, nine organisations have argued that a change in the law would define e-scooters to a high standard of safety and help to lower greenhouse gas emissions from transport.

The letter argues: "It would end the dangerous position we have currently, where at least hundreds of thousands of entirely unregulated e-scooters are (when ridden on public highway) in illegal use, yet where we have no committed plan to deal with this."

Among those to sign the letter are the bosses of Cenex and Taur - which manufactures scooters - experts at the University of Warwick, and Collaborative Mobility (CoMoUK).

London is the latest UK city to trial e-scooters and follows another 30 areas in England that are already operating rental schemes.

Rental e-scooters in the UK have maximum limits of 15.5mph - but the most powerful privately-owned e-scooters can reach up to 68 mph.

Glasgow City Council earlier this year called for the Scottish Government to make e-scooters legal on the road network as part of a proposed strategy to make transport greener.

The Glasgow transport strategy final policy framework – covering more than 100 policies – wants car kilometres travelled in the city to be slashed by 30 per cent come 2030.

Superintendent Simon Bradshaw, deputy head of Police Scotland's Road Policing Unit, warned in December the battery-powered ride-ons are not "toys".

He has warned that anyone riding a privately owned e-scooter in any public place in the UK - including roads, pavements, parks, town centres and promenades - opens themselves up to prosecution.

"It is important however, to make it clear, these are not toys and they are illegal to use in public," he said in message in December.

A spokeswoman for Transport Scotland said: "While the use of powered transporters and decisions around their introduction and associated legislative changes are primarily a matter for the UK Government, additional legislation and associated guidance would be required in Scotland to allow trials to take place.

"This was not factored in to the timescale for the trials programme originally set by the Department for Transport, and as a result the trials currently taking place could not be hosted by Scottish local authorities.

"The UK Government has signalled its intention to publish proposals in 2022 for potential further legalisation of e-scooters beyond the current trials.

"The Scottish Government will consider any such proposals and continue to monitor trends as a matter of course in order to inform future policy on e-scooters."

And according to official UK Government statistics there were 460 accidents involving e-scooters in Britain in 2020.

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