The responsibility for improving road safety cannot be placed on an individual entity – the Safe System principles make that clear. Collaboration is essential.Taking that approach, on 29th April, PACTS held a roundtable discussion in Portcullis House, where professionals representing a range of backgrounds, medical professionals, data analysists, the police, provided their own insights into the ongoing challenges and gaps in e-scooter legislation.
PACTS President, Barry Sheerman MP, opened the meeting, warning that “In other countries most of the collisions and serious injuries involve vulnerable road users, people on two-wheels, very often motorised. My fear is that we are re-creating that here. If we are getting more people around fast on small vehicles, which are difficult to control, we have an emerging crisis.” e-scooters are the first of an inevitable range of new, small, electric vehicles coming to our streets. It’s important that we learn now and apply that knowledge quickly to limit the extent of the crisis.
Using their professional experience, attendees explained their biggest concerns involving e-scooter casualties: that these motor vehicles are classified in police records as toys and marketed as such to all age groups, without a second, more thorough evaluation of the rental trials the chance for greater understanding will be missed and that current police and hospital data collection systems are failing to capture the information needed to inform decisions.
Putting forward their thoughts, attendees on immediate Government action, attendees said: “The fundamental underlying thing that underpins the toy definition is the absence of legislative framework that adequately defines these as not at a toy. […] If we’re not going to legislate quickly there has to be better education. […] Strategically the most important thing to achieve is a legislative framework.” PACTS recommends that any regulations prioritise safety.
Addressing the problem of poor data linkage, and in the wider context of the mobility evolution, PACTS recommend that the DfT and DoHSC must work together to align their coding and open up a means for gathering and sharing records. Attendees said: “A way forward is to work more routinely to bring the different data sources together. It has been quite difficult when legal gateways to allow that don’t exist. […] We need something robust so that it is already in place so that data is being collected routinely, a national dataset.”
e-scooters are motor vehicles, yet that is not clear to the purchasing public. Even police records classify them as toys. Rental schemes require confirmation of age and training, yet sales of e-scooters have no such safeguards. A concerning number of children are using e-scooters and are being injured. Legislation is long overdue. The reins will sit with the next Government, PACTS recommends that they saddle-up fast and tackle the wild west.
Read the full roundtable discussion here. Details of the Westminster Hall debate on e-scooters, on 22nd May 2024, can be found here.
