This long-read opinion piece brings together the key issues surrounding e-scooters in the UK today—legislation, safety concerns, and the lessons that should be learned from trials. While discussions continue around potential regulation, over a million of e-scooters are already in use, both legally and illegally. What happens next will shape the future of micromobility in the UK.
Introduction
At the turn of the 20th century, motor cars were a novelty, bicycles were considered a public nuisance, and the idea of everyday air travel seemed absurd. Now, e-scooters are the latest transport innovation to stir debate. Five years into their widespread use in the UK, they are still caught between convenience, regulation, and safety concerns. As we enter 2025, their future remains uncertain—but their presence on our roads is undeniable. With new legislation under discussion, the need for clear rules and safer infrastructure has never been more pressing.
What is an e-scooter?
E-scooters have evolved as part of the growing development of micro-mobility technologies: small, light-weight and electrically powered. These come in a host of different forms, from minivan-like cargo bikes down to mono-wheels, which are little more than a wheel.
Of these different vehicles, e-scooters have proved to be the most adopted of the new forms of transport. There are some elements which are common to most e-scooters: a deck on two wheels (set one behind the other), a motor powered by an electric battery, a steering column, and a set of handlebars. E-scooters are propelled with a ‘twist and go’ throttle and do not need any other physical input to power them. There are a few which include seats, but these are morphing into the realms of electric mopeds, although with very small wheels.
Overview of e-scooters in the UK
Across Europe e-scooters are in use, be they privately owned, or brightly coloured, street-stored rented e-scooters which are part of operator schemes. However, the UK is one of a dwindling number of outliers. With Ireland’s change to their regulations in 2024, the Netherlands and the UK are now the only countries where it is illegal to use a privately owned e-scooter on roads and in public places. However, we do not exist, as some may see it, in a utopia where only vehicles controlled and managed for construction and use are on the roads. Instead, the public have taken the opportunity available to them to legally buy an e-scooter. The natural consequence is that there is now extensive, illegal, use across the country.
Government-regulated and operator-managed rental trial schemes are in place. They echo those in Europe and elsewhere in form and with the operators in place, but they are very limited – to fewer than 30 places and only in England. These are all trials, therefore contracts are time limited, and the current deadline for the schemes to end is end May 2026.
Understanding more about the two modes of e-scooter use in the UK – illegal private ownership and managed rental schemes – is important to appreciate what the future could, and should, hold.
Private e-scooters in the UK
Private e-scooters have been available to purchase in the UK since around 2015. While they are legal to sell, their use is restricted to private land with the landowner’s permission.
Defined as a motor vehicle, they would need to meet a number of criteria before they would be legal to use on public roads, cycle paths, or in parks. It is not quite, but very nearly, impossible to do. So far just one manufacturer has succeeded in doing this, and riders of those e-scooters need to meet requirements to ride legally.
Where they are sold, e-scooters must meet the same requirements as for toys. These relate to their safety against the general product, machinery directive and Electromagnetic Compatibility regulations. There are no existing regulations for the construction or use of a private e-scooter as a motor vehicle.
This regulatory gap means there are no requirements for limiting speed or power, and no standardised guidelines for essential safety features like wheel size, braking systems, or lighting. As a result, e-scooters are not necessarily designed to be robust enough to handle potholes or to use in wet weather. Some users go further to put themselves at risk as riders by modifying their vehicles for higher speeds.
Private e-scooters are illegal to use on roads and in public places in the UK. The one exception was a model formally classified as a Stand-On Moped by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). That means that the vehicle and the rider have to meet the same safety and regulatory standards as a vehicle in the L1e category, similar to an electric moped. Without training, safety equipment (ie wearing an approved helmet), insurance and meeting age restrictions, the rider could be fined, have their vehicle seized and receive penalty points for using the e-scooter.
However, with a lack of public knowledge about legal standpoint, and the risks which riders were exposing themselves to, private e-scooters are proving to be incredibly popular. A survey regularly carried out by the Government has found that, for the last couple of years, there are estimated to be over 1.2 million in use, illegally.
Rental e-scooters in the UK
It is still possible to legally use an e-scooter in England through one of the fewer than 30 active rental schemes.
Introduced in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, the Government was inspired by the 2-wheeler, powered scooters used for some years elsewhere in the world, Europe and the US. With just a two-week consultation period in July 2020 the opening of trial rental schemes was authorised.
At its peak, around 30 areas in England were running these regulated schemes. Within each, e-scooters must meet, at a minimum, Government regulations around their construction (speed, weight and stability) and use (on roads and cycle lanes, not pavements).
There are also requirements which the riders must meet. Rental e-scooters are only accessible to people over a certain age limit: 15 and ¾ years. This corresponds to the age someone can hold a provisional licence for a moped, although it does not mean they have had any training.
The actual requirements, for the e-scooter and rider, are set by the operating local authority. Some have taken a more cautious approach than the Government minimums. In a few areas the age limit is 16. For many it is 18 years, a somewhat unusual age to choose as it is a year old than the minimum age for holding a licence to drive a car.
GPS technology within each vehicle helps the rider with where, and in some cases how, to ride. The distance that a rental e-scooter can travel is controlled by geofencing. This sets the boundaries for the areas in which the e-scooters are permitted to be used. If a rider tries to take their e-scooter out of the geofenced area the scooter will slowly come to a halt. Riders will also find their e-scooter runs at a reduce speed limit in some places where they are sharing space with people who are walking or wheeling. Parking bays for collecting and docking e-scooters can be geofenced, keeping routes clear for other people.
Regulation vs. Reality: Where do e-scooters stand?
Two different types of e-scooter are in use on our streets, albeit one of those illegal. Rental e-scooter schemes are operated under differing regulations depending on the local authority, leading to widespread confusion about what is allowed and what should be avoided. People don’t know what they could, or should, be doing.
It is disheartening that this has been the case for nearly five years and especially that there has been little learning from deaths involving e-scooters. A coroner raised a prevention of future deaths report in December 2022 after 14 year old died in March that year. Matters of concern which were raised included “the lack of written warnings about the illegal use of e-scooters, and concern that where such warnings are present, often they are not prominent.”
The response from the Department for Transport was published. This explains that the “Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) can take further action against retailers that remain non-compliant which may lead to prosecution of individuals and businesses”. It continues that “Ministerial colleagues at the Department for Transport…have also written to micromobility retailers reminding them of the law.”
In conversations with representatives from local authorities and the police, as well as medical professionals, it is clear that, over two years on, sales of e-scooters for adults and, more alarmingly for children, continue. One way this is materialising is an increase in the number of children caught for using a vehicle without insurance.
The number of people injured while riding an e-scooter, or when hit, continue too. On 1 February 2025 Darcie Casselden died while riding a private e-scooter, as a passenger. She was just nine years old, the youngest person to die in a collision involving an e-scooter.
Despite this, the pat answer given to the question of how the unsatisfactory situation is to be resolved is that the police need to enforce more. However, without their resources being bolstered, and with limited opportunities to safely stop riders when on roads, other means around retail control must be utilised. Safer batteries which reduce the likelihood of fires when e-scooters are charging may go some way to helping.
Call the doctor
An e-scooter may appear more fun, and many choose to use one because they are easier than walking, riding a cycle or taking the bus. However, hospital records from across Europe, as well as the UK, show that the injuries sustained are more likely to be serious because riders are more likely to hit their head when they fall off an e-scooter than if they were riding a bicycle.
The UK is fortunate to have police data about e-scooter casualties from as far back as January 2020. This has been collected from details included in free text contributions in standard police records and is the official data of the number of casualties. It has only been since this year, 2024, that casualties from e-scooter collisions have been more formally included in road casualty statistics, gathered from police records as a drop-down list item.
For the casualties recorded since 2022, over 50% involved a private e-scooter. That can be determined, not because of reporting quality, but because of the location of the collision. Within rental areas the e-scooter has to be either a rental or a private vehicle. Outside rental areas, the e-scooter must be privately owned or would not be rideable.
We know that the police records do not reflect the true number of people harmed. From PACTS research of police and hospital data collected in 2021, it is clear that the number of people recorded by the police was less than that recorded by hospitals. Fewer than 10% of casualties with any level of injury from a collision involving an e-scooter presenting to emergency departments were recorded in the official data. Around a quarter of those most seriously injured in collisions involving e-scooters were recorded by both the police and at hospitals.
Learning from the rental trials
While there may be a reticence by the Government to legalise the use of private e-scooters, rental e-scooters continue to be in operation. Over the last few months some existing areas have enlarged both geographically and with the number of e-scooters available for use. There is therefore a wealth of information to be gleaned. More needs to be done to gain the most of the technology available from the operators to capture details of who is travelling and how their e-scooters journeys compare with other mobilities.
Learning from the rental trials is essential; they are trials rather than full-blown schemes. An evaluation was carried out using eighteen months of data from July 2020 to end December 2021, and in December 2022 the Government published a report with findings about the safety, as well as benefits, public perceptions and wider impacts of the rental e-scooters.
However, the report findings were subjective: riders “reported feeling safe on e-scooters, [but] also considered them less safe than all other modes of transport, with the exception of mopeds and motorcycles”. When looking for quantitative data the report notes that “gathering reliable safety data was a challenge.” Instead, it referred to police records which did not benefit from the tracking technology and user reports available to the operators.
In 2025 a new evaluation will open – one which, PACTS understands, will include means for tracking safety. There is the opportunity for gathering data about injury-collisions as well as near-hits, and compare those to other modes. PACTS would like to see indication of the relative impact of different maximum e-scooter speeds, locations of parking, and spaces where e-scooters are used (roads, cycleways, bridle paths). Most importantly, PACTS expects that recording will be improved to reflect that used by the police. The evaluation is due start this year, but results are unlikely to be available until the trials are due to end in May 2026.
The Future of e-scooters: Challenges and Opportunities
We are within a transport revolution. The technology of light electric micromobility is advancing quickly and the vehicle form is becoming, to a degree, fluid. e-scooters are one form, constructed in a range of dimensions and power outputs, reflecting the breadth of machines available to purchase through the physical and online retail markets in the UK as well as for use in Government backed rental schemes.
They could be part of the transformation from larger, heavier carbon-dioxide emitting transport to smaller, lighter and zero-emissions vehicles. They could mean increased independence for people with limited mobility.
However, the existing situation is unsatisfactory. The unsafe nature of some private e-scooters, and irresponsible use by some, is leading to serious injuries and risks harming efforts by rental operators and local authorities seeking to provide a safe, low-carbon mobility option. People are confused over what they can or cannot and should or should not be using to travel.
Action is still needed to address dangerous and illegal private e-scooter use. Clear information must be issued to the public that it is illegal to use a private e-scooter on public roads and in almost all public places in the UK, and that they could incur substantial fines and penalties if caught. Retailers which fail to properly inform customers of the risks and illegality involved in the use of private e-scooters should be penalised and support must be given to the police in taking enforcement action against illegal and unsafe use.
The article draws on knowledge from research funded by The Road Safety Trust, commissioned in the year e-scooters were first legally introduced in England. While legislation for private e-scooters remains unresolved, PACTS continues to advocate for measures that enhance safety for riders and other road users. Members of both Houses value our expertise in this area.
For further insights into PACTS’ work on e-scooter safety, visit our PACTS Expertise page.
