Ministers are being urged to ban sales of electric scooters until it becomes legal to ride them on the roads.
Simon Foster, Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands, has written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warning of more deaths and serious injuries without a crackdown.
In his letter, seen by the Mail, he brands the contraptions ‘a menace’ and says they are increasingly becoming a drain on police resources.
Privately-owned e-scooters are illegal to ride on the roads.
Yet retailers are selling them in record numbers with few questions asked and are even promoting them as a convenient way of getting around.
It means police are left pulling over hundreds of riders to explain the law and potentially arresting them for driving a motor vehicle without insurance or a licence.
Mr Foster said West Midlands Police force has alone recorded more than 400 incidents in recent years.
Many of these involved young thugs riding dangerously, such as on the pavement, or using e-scooters to commit crimes.
One man, Shakur Amoy Pinnock, 20, died of serious head injuries in June after the e-scooter he was riding collided with a Volkswagen Golf in Wolverhampton.
Only e-scooters in government-backed trials, which users typically pay to rent per minute, are legal and involve licence checks and other measures as a condition of use to ensure a certain level of safety. The devices are limited to 15.5mph and permitted only on roads or cycle lanes, not pavements, in around 50 cities and towns across the country.
Ministers have delayed making a decision on whether to legalise privately-owned e-scooters on the roads until summer 2022.
But Mr Foster said their sale should be banned until this decision, along with a new regulatory regime, is announced.
His letter to Mr Shapps said: ‘Clearly the legislation and regulatory regime around the sale and use of private e-scooters is unfit for purpose.
‘In future, privately owned e-scooters need to be licenced, regulated and appropriate health and safety measures put in place.
‘Until we reach this point, we would urge you to ban the sale of private e-scooters so we don’t see further injuries or deaths on our roads.’
It added: ‘As you will be aware, private e-scooters are legally sold and bought, but they are a menace on our roads, pavements and in our parks.
‘They are causing problems for pedestrians, motorists and police; not to mention a considerable health and safety risk for the owners themselves.
‘It is therefore disappointing to see so many of them being sold to customers who have no place to ride them.’
Mr Foster’s deputy, Assistant Commissioner Tom McNeil, said: ‘It is utter madness that shops up and down the country are selling e-scooters.
‘The government is in a real mess over this issue and seems incapable of doing anything to solve the problem.’
E-scooter users commonly ride on pavements and don’t wear reflective clothing after dark or protective equipment. NHS ambulance trusts have recorded a surge in callouts to incidents where riders have fallen off, collided with cars or left pedestrians with serious injuries after mowing them down while riding on pavements.
Retailers reported a boom in sales last year amid lockdown.
They typically cost from £350, with high-end models running up to nearly £1,000. Their top speeds are capped at 15.5mph but they can be modified to go up to 70mph.
Earlier this year a Mail investigation revealed how robberies, assaults and even a drive-by shooting were among hundreds of crimes involving thugs on e-scooters.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘Anyone concerned with how vendors are advertising them should contact Trading Standards or the Advertising Standards Authority.
‘Ministers recently wrote to the largest retailers reminding them of their legal duty to provide clear information outlining where e-scooters are and are not permitted to be used.’
Original source article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10166759/Ban-e-scooters-legal-UK-roads-crime-commissioner-urges-ministers.html
Author: DAVID CHURCHILL
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