Roads are dangerous, which is why breaking a traffic law is serious business. At least, that is the case when you’re in a car. But what if you’re on a precarious, nearly silent, almost invisible vehicle — that can be piloted by teens and nevertheless go very fast? Then you might just get away with it because the capacity of the police to deal with you — even if you cause an accident — has just about reached its limit.
E-scooters are a menace, wobbling away in drivers’ blind spots and zipping between pedestrians on pavements. Sometimes it’s the rider — unprotected, often helmetless — who gets injured, and sometimes it is someone else. In the year to June 2023, there were 1,299 collisions involving e-scooters recorded by the Department for Transport: seven people were killed and 390 seriously injured. But since then a study has found this represents only about nine per cent of the injuries involving these hard-to-see vehicles. Hospital data is meanwhile showing “worrying trends in injuries to the head, face, and spine” from e-scooter accidents. But the growth in use of e-scooters has outpaced our ability to do much about it.
