Bicycles are already competing with scooters on the streets of London
A law allowing electric scooters to be ridden on public roads and bike lanes of British cities came into force last Saturday. As the BBC notes, there are caveats – you can only ride a rental scooter on the streets, and only with a license, and in certain zones, which, however, exist throughout Britain.
The government planned to allow scooters in 2021. However, it was decided to do this simultaneously with the lifting of the lockdown, in order to at least partially maintain the reduction in harmful emissions from cars, which have become much fewer after the lockdown was introduced.
Until today, electric scooters in the United Kingdom were in a semi-legal status. For those who own a scooter, nothing changes legally. The tax authority requires that everything that moves on British roads be marked, numbered and taxed. It is difficult to get scooters regulated in this way. Because of this, they can only be ridden on private property with the permission of its owner, meaning they cannot be ridden on the streets.
This law has not changed, but in London not everyone complies. Scooters are often ridden from home to the bus stop and from the metro to the office. But they also go out onto the roads. The first and most high-profile scooter accident was the death of TV presenter Emily Hartridge. Last summer, she crashed into a truck in the Battersea area and died. Hartridge's death, and then several more deaths in e-scooter accidents, sparked a wave of calls to ban them on the roads, but their sales in Britain continue to grow.
In many countries, the situation is similar. The number of scooters is growing, legislation is not keeping up, and many complain about scooter owners. Disputes over scooters are likely to enter the public space soon.
In continental European countries that legalized electric scooters quite a long time ago, these disputes last flared up at the end of last year – shortly after the end of summer and shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the continent, electric scooters are gradually being covered by rules. These are norms related rather to common sense – fines for riding on sidewalks or without helmets, age restrictions, a ban on carrying multiple people. In Italy, Spain and France, such norms came into force in October last year, most often on the initiative of city municipalities.
In Britain, they tried to take all this experience into account at once. Only rental scooters are allowed on the roads, most of which cannot exceed the legally set speed. They have been allowed so far as part of testing and only in limited zones. Based on the testing results, the relevant parliamentary committee will decide whether to change the legislation further, likely based on surveys.