TMS Consultancy has launched a new free e-learning course exploring the use of e-scooters on the highway.
The course provides information on the legislation relating to the use of e-scooters on the highway, as well as a review of existing literature on the Government e-scooter trials.
It is available to access via the TMS Consultancy website.
The course includes three workshops; the first workshop will require participants to sift through the DFT e-scooter factsheets and pluck out the relevant information.
The other two workshops will encourage participants to consider the current advantages and disadvantages of e-scooters, and what someone in road safety/highways engineering would suggest for the future of e-scooters.
The main objective of this short course is to provide information on multiple key areas surrounding use of e-scooters on the highway.
It focuses on the following key areas:
- What are e-scooters and what do we know about them?
- What are the current perceptions of e-scooters in the UK?
- A review of the existing literature on Government e-scooters trials in the UK.
- Collision and casualty statistics of e-scooters
- Safety concerns in Europe, Australia and UK.
- What are the pros and cons of e-scooters?
- What does the future hold for e-scooters?
The course should take approximately one hour to complete.
I wonder who sponsored and approved the content of this course? It has numerous flaws. It starts off by looking at the perception of e-scooters, but references a report over 5 years old (Nov20 to Jan21) and cites reports only on the shared trial e-scooters. It goes on to reference the DfT e-scooter “fact”sheets for 2023 and 2024…as if they were gospel or even accurate. For example, it details that in 2024 there were 6 e-scooter fatalities. It fails to detail the more poignant fact that one of those 6 was the first pedestrian victim fatality – killed on the pavement by a 14 year old rider who admitted in court he was riding in excess of 20mph. Moreover, online news media reported 9 e-scooter rider fatalities in 2024, not the DfT’s 5, as documented by PACTS. DfT e-scooter data under-estimates e-scooter fatalities by some 30% due to the reporting restrictions of STATS19. Using the 2023-4 factsheets as sources, it points out that there were “1390 casualties of which 1096 were e-scooter users”, but fails to point out the glaringingly obvious that 294 casualties were “victims” of e-scooter users. I suggest a useful learning point would be to compare the fatality data presented by the DfT and that by PACTS, which is more accurate and up to date.
There is the odd pecularity…to list two as follows. One question seems to think it is important to know whether Paris banned shared e-scooters in January or August of 2023. Secondly, when considering the impact of abandoning e-scooter inappropriately, it details a woman injured by tripping over one. Perhaps a more poignant example would be 75 year old Phil Jones (Northampton, 7Oct20) who suffered a fatal heart attack whilst trying to move an abandoned e-scooter from the path of his mobility scooter.
Moreover, it fails to point out that owners of private e-scooters do not abandon their e-scooters…..just one of many examples where evidence from shared trials is irrelevant when legislating private e-scooters.
Most important of all, the course fails on one single point, in which the DfT is also guilty. It does not adequately distinguish, if at all, between private and shared/rented e-scooter, be it their design, use, limits, collisions, casualties etc. The two are chalk and cheese. Evidence from the rental trials only supports the continuation of shared rented e-scooters, where financially viable, and where supported by the population (ref Paris and Melbourne).
Pete, Nottingham
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