Escooter trial to start

[simonhill]

Found this from Kentonline on my news feed.

"E scooter trial in Canterbury to end after two years.

Electric scooters will soon vanish from Kent's streets as a decision has been taken to end a controversial trial of the divisive vehicles.

The politician overseeing the trial - KCC's cabinet member for transport, Cllr David Brazier - says he decided to "truncate it before someone was seriously hurt”."

Surprised that the illustrious Cllr Brazier hasn't noticed the number of people seriously hurt by motor vehicles and decided to "truncate" them.

The DoTs continued trial period is crazy. Someone needs to get their finger out and make a decision.

[thirdcrank]

Found this from Kentonline on my news feed.

"E scooter trial in Canterbury to end after two years.

Electric scooters will soon vanish from Kent's streets as a decision has been taken to end a controversial trial of the divisive vehicles.

The politician overseeing the trial - KCC's cabinet member for transport, Cllr David Brazier - says he decided to "truncate it before someone was seriously hurt”."

Surprised that the illustrious Cllr Brazier hasn't noticed the number of people seriously hurt by motor vehicles and decided to "truncate" them.

The DoTs continued trial period is crazy. Someone needs to get their finger out and make a decision.

Perhaps this is just one more policy decision which has been in the "pending" tray while Boris Johnson's successor was chosen. Compared with some of the other stuff in there like fuel prices, it's not a pressing item. imo

[Bonefishblues]

Found this from Kentonline on my news feed.

"E scooter trial in Canterbury to end after two years.

Electric scooters will soon vanish from Kent's streets as a decision has been taken to end a controversial trial of the divisive vehicles.

The politician overseeing the trial - KCC's cabinet member for transport, Cllr David Brazier - says he decided to "truncate it before someone was seriously hurt”."

Surprised that the illustrious Cllr Brazier hasn't noticed the number of people seriously hurt by motor vehicles and decided to "truncate" them.

The DoTs continued trial period is crazy. Someone needs to get their finger out and make a decision.

Two years and nobody seriously hurt sounds like a successful trial to me.

[Jdsk]

KentOnline 10 September 2022:
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury ... ts-273296/

Kent County Council, last update 6 May 2022"
https://letstalk.kent.gov.uk/escootertrial

but it does have more details of the trial than I've seen for any other:
https://ehq-production-europe.s3.eu-wes ... 37b63e2ac4

I don't think that the DfT has ever published how they will evaluate the trials.

Jonathan

[axel_knutt]

Surprised that the illustrious Cllr Brazier hasn't noticed the number of people seriously hurt by motor vehicles and decided to "truncate" them.

The DoTs continued trial period is crazy. Someone needs to get their finger out and make a decision.

Cars are popular, scooters aren't. Politics is about what's popular and what people will vote for, climate change would have been fixed long ago otherwise.

[WrightsW5]

For escooters in general the deaths are way too many https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8& ... ooter#ip=1

[Nearholmer]

I hope to goodness there isn’t ‘read across’ to other places, because they seem to work well where I live in MK, the only issue being that they get ‘dumped’ all over the place at the end of trips.

I’m sure if pushbikes had just been invented, there would be a controlled trial of those, and they’d get banned!

[Bonefishblues]

For escooters in general the deaths are way too many https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8& ... ooter#ip=1

Of a general Google search this one seems helpful:

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/car-in ... s-reported

[Vorpal]

For escooters in general the deaths are way too many https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8& ... ooter#ip=1

Way too many? Relative to what?

From the article Bonefishblues linked

While the number of collisions increased significantly from 2020, initial reporting shows that e-scooter riders are more likely to hurt themselves rather than others

TBH, while people complain about them being left all over the place, here, they seem to work pretty well in Norway. They seem to replace walking or bus trips, rather than car trips, but I haven't seen any statistics on this, and I do see private ones on the train sometimes. They certainly make the use of public transport more convenient, which I think is a good goal.

[al_yrpal]

We have had hire scooters in Taunton ever since we moved here. I see no problem with them on the roads but you do see them whipping along the pavements and quite a few non hire ones too. In my 80th year with a slight deterioration in my balance I fear pavement scooterists. I think there should be huge fines for any pavement cyclists or scooterists as a deterent. £500 seems about right and a jail term for causing injury.

Al

[Bmblbzzz]

They certainly make the use of public transport more convenient, which I think is a good goal.

Good point.

[mjr]

I think there should be huge fines for any pavement cyclists or scooterists as a deterent. £500 seems about right and a jail term for causing injury.

Not unless pavement motorists have penalties raised to at least that!

[WrightsW5]

On pavements, I think the law should differenciate between a pedal cycle and an electric motorscooter where the person can move at constant high speed with no effort. Worse are (what seem to be?) them electric alleged bicycles that are like massive mountain bikes, with massive motors well over 250w, motorbikes disguised as bicycles that should have number plates, ved, mot, licence, helmets, being ridden on pavements. There ought to be a law about their visual construction, so an electric motorbike actually looks like a motorbike.

[Bonefishblues]

There ought to be a law about their visual construction, so an electric motorbike actually looks like a motorbike.

They seem to look like motorcycles to me, based on a cursory search for the term?

https://www.google.com/search?q=electri ... =800&dpr=2

I think that legislative intervention to regulate appearance is impractical tbh.

[hemo]

It is just not only escooters or ebikes on pathways, it is the illegal parking of a car also on pathways whether two or four wheels are on them. Parking on pathways means a driver has had to illegally drive on said pathway and should also receive an equall fine, £250 a time should be enough to discorage most then every time someone is caught for the third time it should double and so on.