Adele Greenough, Partner – Client Care and RTA at Express Solicitors
By Adele Greenough, Partner – Client Care and RTA at Legal Futures Associate Express Solicitors
As rental e-scooter trial periods in 22 regions of the UK are extended for a fourth time to May 2026, we wanted to take a more in depth look at what the rules are for e-scooter use, private or rental, and what that means for anyone injured because of them.
Transport safety organisation PACT has voiced concerns about the extension of the trials saying that while they will enable the Government to continue evaluating the usage and the safety impact of e-scooters, it won’t help towards dealing with privately owned e-scooters which are being used illegally on public roads.
So let’s look at what’s legal and what isn’t. Courts have already ruled that e-scooters can be considered as motor vehicles, making them subject to the same rules and requirements as cars and motorcycles. A motor vehicle, according to The Road Traffic Act of 1988, is a ‘mechanically propelled vehicle intended or adapted for road use’.
Government guidance adds to that by describing e-scooters as ‘powered transporters’ putting them in the same category as segways and hoverboards. This means, as with motor vehicles, they cannot be ridden on footpaths or pavements and they are required to have an MOT, tax, licensing, and a specific construction. Also, the rider must hold valid insurance, although it’s not actually possible to get insurance for privately owned e-scooters.
Outside of the trial areas, e-scooters can only be used legally, and with consent of the land owner, on private land. If they are used within a public space, it may be seized under S.165 Road Traffic Act 1988 for having no insurance and the police may prosecute the individual for not holding the appropriate licence.
Unless both e-scooter and rider meet all the legal requirements, using one on the road, pavement or in cycle lanes is illegal. But even though the use of a private e-scooter is illegal, the rider is still a road user and riders are required to abide by the same rules as someone riding their bike or driving their car. Unfortunately, it is the case that the majority of those using an e-scooter have little or no experience of driving on the roads, or, in many cases, no licence.
Safety concerns
There are safety concerns for both e-scooter riders and vulnerable road users alike. Moreover, in the Government’s study on the perceptions of e-scooters, safety was seen as the overriding disadvantage amongst respondents.
So what are the safety stats? Well, provisional government data shows that there were, in the year ending June 2023:
- 1,269 collisions involving e-scooters, compared to 1,462 in year ending June 2022
- of all collisions involving e-scooters, 276 included only one e-scooter with no other vehicles involved in the collision (single vehicle collision), compared to 364 in year ending June 2022
- there were 1,355 casualties in collisions involving e-scooters, compared to 1,552 in year ending June 2022
- of all casualties in collisions involving e-scooters, 1,077 were e-scooter users, compared to 1,188 in year ending June 2022
- there were 7 killed in collisions involving e-scooters (7 of whom were e-scooter riders) compared to 12 in year ending June 2022
- The best estimate, after adjusting for changes in reporting by police, is that there were 390 seriously injured and 958 slightly injured in collisions involving e-scooters, this compares to 456 and 1,084 respectively in year ending June 2022.
The data collected during the first stages of the trial indicated that there was a higher frequency of rental e-scooter collisions was higher during 2021 than for pedal cycles, “though this was likely to be driven in part by the novel nature of the mode”.
Steps can be taken to reduce the frequency of such collisions. Training courses to introduce and familiarise users to the vehicle may reduce this figure. That said, the risks posed by e-scooters can’t be that dissimilar to that posed by cyclists.
Cyclists, although encouraged to have their own insurance, at the very least for third parties, it is not compulsory. Some cycle without safety equipment and without lights. The exertion required may lead one to assume that there may, inevitably, be moments where a cyclist is not paying attention to the road. E-scooters don’t require such physical exertion and so the user may be more alert to potential hazards.
Moreover, a keen cyclist, perhaps training for exercise, can surpass speeds of 20-25mph (especially on the downhill), yet there is little by way of regulation making it mandatory for cyclists to use sensible protective equipment. Consequently, like for like, e-scooters may prove to be the safer mode of transport in the long run.
Personal injury claims and the future
At this moment in time the only e-scooters likely to have insurance are rental e-scooters offered as part of a scheme. Where a scooter is used without insurance the MIB is liable to compensate an injured party where a vehicle is used without insurance.
Disregarding for the time being that if a person causes serious harm to another person while riding an e-scooter, the incident will be investigated in the same way it would if they were riding a motorcycle or driving a car, after the case of Clark v. Farley [2018] EWHC 1007 (QB), where a 15 year old boy, illegally riding pillion on a motorcycle and suffered a catastrophic brain injury, the liability for MIB might be far reaching.
This has the potential to cause the tax-payer millions. Therefore, it would follow that the next natural step for the expansion and proliferation of e-scooters would be for a policy of insurance made available to those who wish to utilise privately owned e-scooters.
