E Scooters > on the road

[Fab Foodie]

Once upon a time, a man with a white flag had to walk in front of one of those new-fangled automobile things....

Personal electric transport has to be part of the future of clean urban mobility. We simply need to adapt our cities, educate other road users, educate e-transport users and retailers. As said upthread, the Govt. should have seen this coming down the road and started to plan earlier. Joined-up thinking in the Transport department is not a Govt. strong point.

In time I'm hopeful that this new dawn will be addressed - in the meantime there's bound to be some issues until new ways are established.

 

[captain nemo1701]

e-scooters: i was all for them, and I think mostly still am. But the points some of you made about it hitting a pedestrian (elderly or otherwise) while being used inconsiderately, combined with how easy they are to buy, and perhaps the low quality battery installation, has given me doubt. I still want to see them being used as they make excellent personal transport but I cannot think of a way to get the muppets off of them.

Someone above also made the point that bike infrastructure is being motorised. It's quite easy to get bikes that are illegally modified to pass the 15mph limit. Sure, the law is there to prevent it but I'm unsure how effective that is.

Skateboards (electric or otherwise) should just be banned on the streets. The number of times I've seen a skateboarder step onto the edge of it hard so it's supposed to shoot vertically upwards and they can grab it has gone wrong. What frequently happns is the skateboarder hard-steps on the edge of the skateboard and instead of it shooting vertically upwards, it goes, at speed, onto a horizontal trajectory (but slightly in the air) and hits stuff (for example, my car, or a person). Absolutely hate them. (PS: I'm sure there is a technical term for what the skateboarder is trying to accomplish).

Skateboarders on College Green in Bristol like to build little 'take off' ramps....in the segregated cycle lanes. The number of times I've almost been hit by some numpties skateboard as it shoots out from under them. There is a term for describing their attempts to flick the board up into their hand......too lazy to pick the bloody thing up.

 

[Poacher]

Once upon a time, a man with a white flag had to walk in front of one of those new-fangled automobile things....

Red flag, shirley? OK, I'll surrender if I'm wrong.

 

[mjr]

There seems to be some confusion here with bus lanes and Bristol allowed motorbikes in them in 1996. Motorbikes have never been allowed in cycleways in Bristol.[..]

There seems to be some confusion here with motorbikes. Avon County Council routinely allowed mopeds (not motorbikes) in cycle lanes and on cycle tracks (not bus lanes). I remember North Somerset Council being pressed by CTC to get on with it and remove the last of the moped signs around 2010, possibly from Hutton Moor Road and Locking Moor Road, the legal orders having been amended years earlier.

Here's the signage used in the regulations that applied 1981-1994. I don't think there was an equivalent of "and mopeds" after 1994 BICBW.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Red flag, shirley? OK, I'll surrender if I'm wrong.

Oh yeah!

 

[Accy cyclist]

It's about time these bloody things were forced off the road! I've just had some hassle while out driving off three @'~#ts on 2 electric motorbikes and a scooter. While driving down a very narrow double parked vehicles road I kept down to probably 15 mph to judge the distance from me parked up vehicles. Most do this as it's so narrow. Anyway, these 3 tossers tried to overtake me in what must've been at most a 2 foot gap. One was so close I couldn't see the rider in my rear view mirror, only the handlebars and the full beam headlight. As I got to a wider part of the road one banged on the roof of my car as he passed, also giving me none too pleasant hand signals as he sped off at what must've been 40mph. So let me see, no helmets, no registration, no insurance no doubt, yet I have to have insurance, have an MOT and pay 'road tax'! What are the laws if I accidentally hit one of these @'#~rs? Will they get breathalysed like I will? Will I be able to claim off them if they damage my car? I suppose I should be grateful they didn't punch my wing mirror off as they passed. If they had maybe the red mist would've come down and I'd have 'accidentally' knocked one of the tossers off!!😠

 

[captain nemo1701]

It's about time these bloody things were forced off the road! I've just had some hassle while out driving off three @'~#ts on 2 electric motorbikes and a scooter. While driving down a very narrow double parked vehicles road I kept down to probably 15 mph to judge the distance from me parked up vehicles. Most do this as it's so narrow. Anyway, these 3 tossers tried to overtake me in what must've been at most a 2 foot gap. One was so close I couldn't see the rider in my rear view mirror, only the handlebars and the full beam headlight. As I got to a wider part of the road one banged on the roof of my car as he passed, also giving me none too pleasant hand signals as he sped off at what must've been 40mph. So let me see, no helmets, no registration, no insurance no doubt, yet I have to have insurance, have an MOT and pay 'road tax'! What are the laws if I accidentally hit one of these @'#~rs? Will they get breathalysed like I will? Will I be able to claim off them if they damage my car? I suppose I should be grateful they didn't punch my wing mirror off as they passed. If they had maybe the red mist would've come down and I'd have 'accidentally' knocked one of the tossers off!!😠

I share your pain, loathe these things and also those dumb e-wheels which some insist on called 'hoverboards or hoverwheels as they're not standing on the ground....????. This isn't Back to the Future 2. Is my bike thus a 'hoverbike'?. Once followed a bloke on my commute home at night on his e-wheel. No indication, no shoulder checks,no doubt thinking he looked dead cool with his hands in his pockets, casually hopping onto the pavement on his 'micromobility' transport. Also seen a guy on a completely unrestricted escooter doing about 30-40 mph on the Bristol Railway Path. And in Bristol, one ebike shop is now flogging escooters which, IMHO, are transport for the bone idle. I read of one police chief who criticised Selfridges (?) for flogging one that could do 40 mph. Its depressing to see vendors taking advantage of the law and flogging these damn things for profit but covering their backsides by saying that customers should not ride them in public...yeah...like that's gonna happen.

In a collision, I would imagine the law would come down hardest on those on illegal forms of transport.

Micromobility - a technical term for those whose legs don't work properly

 

[T4tomo]

The problem is they belong neither on the roads nor the pavements. Pretty sure I saw this morning a 14 yr old girl has been killed in London on one colliding with a Van.

 

[annedonnelly]

The problem is they belong neither on the roads nor the pavements. Pretty sure I saw this morning a 14 yr old girl has been killed in London on one colliding with a Van.

Here's a link

 

[captain nemo1701]

The problem is they belong neither on the roads nor the pavements. Pretty sure I saw this morning a 14 yr old girl has been killed in London on one colliding with a Van.

I read that too, very sad.

A couple of weeks ago from the top deck of a bus, I saw a kid probably aged 8-10 riding one down the pavement opposite the main road....no parents about I could see.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Red flag, shirley? OK, I'll surrender if I'm wrong.

Isn‘t it white flag if surrendering?

 

[mjr]

What are the laws if I accidentally hit one of these @'#~rs? Will they get breathalysed like I will? Will I be able to claim off them if they damage my car?

The law remains the same as ever: you, the driver, must drive so you can stop within what you can see to be clear. It doesn't matter if you hit a wheeliebin, a wild animal or a fool on an e-scooter: if you hit them, then you have failed to comply with your driving licence, regardless of what crimes they may have committed. You have heard the expression "two wrongs don't make a right", yes? Unless they ride into you, then it's quite likely that you will both be investigated. And quite right, too. You're the trained, tested and licensed driver: act like it. You should be better than an e-scooterist.

As I understand it, e-scooters are currently basically motorbikes in law, so they would probably be breathalysed, then prosecuted for driving without insurance, registration and licence.

You could claim "off them" but because they're uninsured (e-scooters cannot be insured for road use at present because it's illegal), they'd soon be bankrupt and it'll probably be the Motor Insurers' Bureau paying.

 

[matticus]

So let me see, no helmets, no registration, no insurance no doubt, yet I have to have insurance, have an MOT and pay 'road tax'! What are the laws if I accidentally hit one of these @'#~rs? Will they get breathalysed like I will? Will I be able to claim off them if they damage my car? I suppose I should be grateful they didn't punch my wing mirror off as they passed. If they had maybe the red mist would've come down and I'd have 'accidentally' knocked one of the tossers off!!😠

Firstly:
You'll have the same problem if you collide with an uninsured CAR (estimated as about 10% of current cars on the road). So good luck with that

Secondly:
Threatening to "knock one of the tossers off"? Don't be a dick, or we'll treat you like a dick. Fair enough?

 

[Scotchlovingcylist]

Alot of the kids down my street got them for Christmas so obviously my daughter now wants one for her birthday. I'm quite happy to let her have one for riding round our cul de sac on the paths, it's a quiet street and we are lucky the kids round here are generally courteous and sensible, my daughter included. Wouldn't fancy her using it anywhere else though except private land or local park maybe.
Couple of people at work have started commuting on them due to rising costs of fuel, living etc and aware of the legalities around them but take their chances and to be honest if it helps them save a little money at present I can't really hold that against them as lots of people I know are struggling.
Personally I'm still on the fence with them for road use after reading reports and will be interested to see the results of the trials once published. I do however, think they are quite a smart invention and if the law manages to catch up quickly enough to accommodate them they could be a welcome addition to transportation.

 

[classic33]

Alot of the kids down my street got them for Christmas so obviously my daughter now wants one for her birthday. I'm quite happy to let her have one for riding round our cul de sac on the paths, it's a quiet street and we are lucky the kids round here are generally courteous and sensible, my daughter included. Wouldn't fancy her using it anywhere else though except private land or local park maybe.
Couple of people at work have started commuting on them due to rising costs of fuel, living etc and aware of the legalities around them but take their chances and to be honest if it helps them save a little money at present I can't really hold that against them as lots of people I know are struggling.
Personally I'm still on the fence with them for road use after reading reports and will be interested to see the results of the trials once published. I do however, think they are quite a smart invention and if the law manages to catch up quickly enough to accommodate them they could be a welcome addition to transportation.

It's not so much the law catching up with them, as their users abiding by the rules of the road. Travelling against the flow of traffic isn't the safest way to travel.