FEATURE
PHOTO BY WILDFIRE 1775 ON PEXELS
Safety as a core concern E-scooters remain on British streets, even though privately owned ones are only permitted on private land. Department for Transport data shows 235 pedestrian injuries from e-scooter collisions in 2025, 54 of which were classed as serious. Previous research shows a majority of collisions involved privately owned e-scooters. Consequently, for all three organisations we spoke to, legalisation and regulation are important in tackling such an issue. Cycling UK’s Head of Campaigns Duncan Dollimore had
the strongest comments on the matter: “What we’re seeing from the collisions involving scooters is they seem to be more serious than typical collisions from bikes at the same speed, because people are adopting a different position.” He feels that the trials in the UK are for ‘too big, too powerful and too fast machines.’
Maximum continuous rated power as a proxy for safety isn’t the core problem in the eyes of Annick Roetynck, CEO of LEVA EU:“Power limits are totally, totally nonsense. The vehicle has to be limited at 25 kilometres an hour. So what difference does it make whether it’s 500 watts or one kilowatt maximum continuous power?” For Roetynck, kinetic energy is the most important factor:
the power of impact in a collision. “The only factors relevant to the safety of these vehicles are mass and speed. That decides what the impact is going to be when there’s a crash.”
What regulation is in place and what needs to change? With e-bike regulation, the UK was in the EU at the time, and our laws broadly mirror those of our European neighbours. The obvious regulatory solution may therefore be to look to Europe to tackle the ‘legal purgatory’ we are currently stuck in. At EU level, the regulatory picture is already fragmented. Some light electric vehicles fall under Regulation (EU) 168/2013, the type-approval regime for two- and three-wheel
www.bikebiz.com
vehicles and quadricycles, while others — including many e-scooters — fall under the Machinery Directive. Technical standards such as EN 17128 then sit alongside national rules governing where and how the vehicles can be used. Roetynck said, “Our vehicles are in two pieces of legislation which were never meant to be for these vehicles.” In Roetynck’s eyes, that isn’t recommended due to a
hotchpotch of EU regulations overlaid by 27 member-state regulations that, in some cases, don’t even conform to the EU regulations they stem from. LEVA-EU has been lobbying the European Commission
for coherent regulation for some time and sits on several EC panels. Frustratingly for Roetynck, however, this means dealing with parallel core regulations rather than building a single framework. In her view, the EU and the UK both need to look at light electric mobility and develop a coherent approach from the ground up: “Let’s go ahead and create a specific framework, not just for e-scooters but for all light electric vehicles, from e-scooters all the way to microcars.” Dollimore agrees on the problem of incoherent legislation:
“We haven’t started this well with the way the trials have been approached, because they should have had a far more cautionary approach to the trials in terms of weight, speeds and those sorts of things, because they could always have increased them if it was not proving to be problematic.” From the Walk Wheel Trust’s position, Simpson said,
“Repeatedly extending the trials for hire scooters means there isn’t certainty for the public, providers or local leaders. Those using hire scooters risk having their scooters removed overnight. Meanwhile, those who could benefit from their own scooter aren’t being given this option. A clear e-scooter law could finally set out speed limits, fire safety standards, parking arrangements and other details vital to make these vehicles work for all of us, whether we’re using them or not.”
November 2026 | 11
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
