Scooter Tsunami coming to Australia this Summer
By Stephen Coulter & Krystyna Weston
Interesting article from today’s Times of London today by English Insurance Lawyer Glyn Thompson.
Are Governments Not Meeting Their Duty of Care By Not Legalising Electric Scooters?
We have written on this topic before. Australia’s major retailers and many others are now actively selling electric scooters — even though their use on public roads and footpaths is illegal across Australia, except for Queensland.
This Summer will be the summer of scooters in Australia — whether governments regulate or not.
The public is not being adequately informed by government and is buying electric scooters in good faith — totally unaware they will most likely not be covered by any insurance;
You can't insure an illegal activity!
As Glyn Thompson points out, a simple solution is to regulate electric scooters as eBikes or bikes and review the effectiveness after 6–12 months. Australia is very slow to regulate electric scooters, even though there is a lot of good feedback from the 200+ cities around the world with electric scooters.
In the last two months, major reports with advice to local governments have been released by NACTO in the USA, Singapore’s Active Mobility Advisory Panel and the Association of German Cities and Municipalities. There is no shortage of good advice and common sense available.
- The USA’s NACTO Releases Guidelines for Managing Shared Bikes and Scooters in Cities
- Singapore’s Active Mobility Advisory Panel(AMAP)
- Germany’s Report, Shared E-Scooters: Paving the Road Ahead, Policy Recommendations for Local Government
Summer is Coming!
Today’s Glyn Thompson Article from the Times of London
LAW | COMMENT
october 25 2019, 12:01am, the times
The government needs to change gear on electric scooters
glyn thompson
The cheap, eco-friendly gadgets have surged in popularity but the law must be changed to prevent more deaths
The law governing the use of electric scooters is failing. The message that e-scooters are illegal on a public road in England and Wales is clearly not getting through.
Office workers whizzing through towns and cities do not seem to know that if they are caught using one on a road or pavement they potentially face criminal prosecution, six penalty points, a £300 fine and the unceremonious destruction of the beloved e-scooter.
Should a user collide with someone and cause injury they also face a more significant prosecution.
From a civil liability perspective, we all owe those around us a duty of care and crashing into someone on an e-scooter is likely to be a breach of that duty. With there being no need to carry insurance for civil liability, a nightmare scenario surely awaits some.
What can and should be done?
The advice from the Department of Transport that e-scooter retailers should tell customers that the devices can only be used on private land is not enough.
The government recognised the problem in March and promised a consultation, but that is where the trail ends. Since then, the television presenter Emily Hartridge was killed aged 35 when she was hit by a lorry and a 14-year-old boy was left in a life-threatening condition after crashing into a bus stop. With e-scooter use showing no signs of stopping, more accidents seem inevitable.
The government needs to do more quickly.
E-scooters, being cheap, environmentally friendly, small, lightweight, collapsible and of relatively low speed, must surely be a welcome addition to the array of transport options available, but the risks must be managed. As with any explosion in popularity of the latest piece of gadgetry — headphones and drones spring to mind — risks manifest themselves overnight.
With e-scooters merging in between pedestrians and all kinds of vehicles, the risk is too significant for this issue to join the red-tape queue.
An interim solution could be found. Safe use law exists for electric bicycles, allowing those that stay below 15.5mph to be used on roads. That law could potentially be extended to e-scooters. It would certainly prevent illegal use in the first instance and get them off pavements.
However, in the longer term, the answer requires more imagination.
The wider question is working out exactly where e-scooters belong. Pushing users off pavements puts them among cars, lorries, buses and even bicycles. Where is the “crumple zone” on an upright scooter? What about the absence of reflectors and brakes? Indeed, is road use what e-scooters were intended for?
This area needs a deep review immediately, taking in not only e-scooter use but how we wish to move about in the future.
With Christmas looming and users potentially set to increase the government needs to act now.
Glyn Thompson heads the motor sector team at the Forum of Insurance Lawyers and is a solicitor at the law firm Weightmans
