- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
London e-scooters (TfL)Royal Parks accused of having “lost the plot” over banning electric scooters
The Royal Parks has been accused of having “lost the plot” after reacting to yesterday’s launch of trial electric scooter hire schemes by banning them from the green spaces it looks after – including Richmond Park, where campaigners have been urging for motor vehicles to be banned.
As our sister website eBikeTips reported yesterday, Transport for London (TfL) has announced that from next month, the capital will finally join a number of other cities around the country in trialling three electric scooter hire schemes.
> Three London e-scooter trials to begin in June – with additional safety measures imposed
But a spokeswoman for The Royal Parks insisted that “we do not permit – and we have no plans to permit – the use of e-scooters in the parks.”
Social media users subsequently pointed out what they see as the absurdity of banning electric scooters from the parks, while permitting motor vehicles.
What's going on here, @theroyalparks? How can you justify allowing cars but not e-scooters? Surely you'd ban the cars long before you'd ban escooters? Personally I prefer bicycles, but I'd much rather an e-scooter rider than a car driver on the Richmond Park R25 motorway.
— Fully Vaccinated CyclingMikey. 🇪🇺🇳🇱🇿🇼 (@MikeyCycling) May 18, 2021
In #RichmondPark Consultation majority wanted through traffic banned because noise, disturbance of nature reserve etc. Obviously majority didn’t know what they were voting for as council asks for extended consultation! 🙄 But @theroyalparks bans Escooters straight off 🤨 pic.twitter.com/j3NxxvUFL6
— KT2&Me (@kt2_me) May 18, 2021
A short play about UK road safety.
"Yeah, but somebody is killed or injured every 20 minutes on Britain's roads. What can we do about it?"
🙋"I know! I know!!
Let's restrict e-scooters to 12.5mph and ban them from parks."
"Solved. Next."https://t.co/eXNjTc9Qa1
— ButCyclists 🚴🏽♂️💨💨💨💨 (@but_cyclists) May 18, 2021
On the left: “unacceptable risk”; on the right: the status quo. The Royal Parks have lost the plot. pic.twitter.com/TMssfdor85
— The Department of Parks & Recreation 🦌 (@ldnparks) May 19, 2021
In common with trials underway in around 50 other locations around the country, the hire scooters, operated in London by Dott, Lime and Tier, will be covered by group third party motor insurance policies and will also carry identification numbers.
They are restricted to 12.5mph and can be ridden on the road and in parks, but not on footways, and many schemes are geofenced so that scooters cannot be ridden outside the designated trial area.
They will be available in a select group of boroughs – Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Richmond and the City of London – as well as in the Canary Wharf development, and can also be ridden through (but not hired or left in) Tower Hamlets.
Other boroughs have also expressed an interest in participating. But The Royal Parks – which is responsible parks including Kensington Gardens, part of which lies in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, plus Richmond Park and Bushy Park, both of which are in Richmond upon Thames, has made it clear that scooters hired under the pilot scheme are not welcome on its roads.
A spokeswoman for The Royal Parks said: “The parks and other open spaces we care for are principally places for quiet recreation and where pedestrians have priority.
“It is important that all our visitors feel safe in the parks and we believe that the speed and stealth of e-scooters will have a negative impact on people’s experience of the parks, particularly those with young families, with mobility challenges or with a visual or hearing impairment.
“Allowing e-scooters to operate in the parks could discourage those who wish to walk to and through the parks and undermine the ambience of the green spaces.
“We will watch the London trial with interest, but we do not permit – and we have no plans to permit – the use of e-scooters in the parks,” she added.
Earlier this year, The Royal Parks extended by 12 months its Movement Strategy following a consultation period that closed in January and saw massive support for banning through traffic (unlike the other Royal Parks, roads within Regent’s Park are the responsibility of a separate body the Crown Estate Paving Commission).
Under current road traffic law, outside the trials currently taking place, e-scooters are banned from UK roads, and police have been known to seize privately-owned ones being ridden illegally on the highway, with riders subject to a fine of up to £300.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- ktache 1 hour 8 min ago
They also do it in orange. I'm after a deep winter jacket after the past week.
- ktache 1 hour 7 min ago
The people at Hexlox have asked me to tell others about their black Friday deals, but I don't quite know what the offer is yet. But saving anything...
- momove 1 hour 25 min ago
You two are going to have to help out the undereducated here!...
- VIPcyclist 1 hour 50 min ago
Whilst I was reading this I was thinking : sounds familiar, yep, that's right . Then I read the bit about being referred for a fitness to drive and...
- Dnnnnnn 2 hours 4 min ago
I'm unclear how simply considering the views of people who travel through an area is voting for rat-runs. No need to explain though.
- David9694 3 hours 3 min ago
When you don't know for sure what the whinge would be if this work was postponed to January, but you know there would be one:...
- biking59boomer 3 hours 43 min ago
Sadly the cyclist hate in this country seems to have worsened of late. Dangerous motoring combined with anti-cycling officialdom in some places is...
- Cyclo1964 6 hours 15 min ago
Brilliant 🤣
Add new comment
49 comments
I'm fond of escooters and did have one last summer when they were debating legalising, before I was stopped riding it at around 12mph in Hyde Park cycle lanes.
I couldn't debate that it was illegal and didn't want any points on my license. Thankfully the police officer was inquisitive but reasonable. There are a only a handful riding around the parks here as it's known they are illegal. I sold late last yr
I'd buy again once can sort the insurance and logistics. Kids around here are ridiculously dangerous especially if they can get one of the 25mph+ versions. Sure the old cyclists jump reds which is always such a stain on the community, but at least they stay on the road.
People around here; "Wor is a Royal Park?"
My mind is changing on this, and I'm starting to think that e-scooters (used not abused) are part of the solution rather than the problem.
I don't normally drive young Hayes to school (we normally cycle), but yesterday I did. And as I was stuck in traffic, alone in the car on the way back, an e-scooter glided past (Okay, he was joyriding at 20 mph down the Cambridge Heath Road).
But my immediate thought was not 'Wanker'. That was my second thought. My first was how much less space on the road the e-scooter rider was using that me in my greenwashed hybrid 4x4: even less than a cyclist if you take the wheelbase into account.
I agree.
When walking junior CB to school I almost always pass a chap on a (likely illegal) e-scooter travelling on the road.
I realised how much less danger he poses to us than the multiple people travelling solo in their legal 4x4s.
As you said they are also taking up a hell of a lot less space.
I really think they are the future of urban transport.
Here in Bristol we've got a Voi scooter trial going on, so there's a bunch of people using them on the roads (the only legal place they can be used) and strangely enough complaining of aggressive behaviour by some motorists (beeping of horns and swearing at them to get off their roads).
I'm hoping that it'll give motorists much more exposure to non-car shaped traffic and that they'll learn to pay more attention and not just blindly follow the vehicle in front.
I am shocked. Shocked I tell you.
Hopefully E-scooters will get a lot more common and people will hate them instead of cyclists...
(I am, of course, joking)
Of course, this is not a surprise to cyclists, but here's an article about one person's experience: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/voi-e-scooter-rider-tells-5382628
Those scooters are terrifying, hawkinspeter! You wouldn't get me on one if you paid me.
They do have lights and indicators, but they're all about two inches off the road surface.
Given how many much bigger things motorists fail to see (and how rubbish the general road surface is)...
But are they more or less frightening to drivers in Royal Parks than bicycles?
Mrs Hawkinspeter has been making occasional use of the Voi scooters to get to work and back (they're doing a freebie thingy for NHS workers within certain zones) so I hassled her to take/wear a helmet (revenge as she used to hassle me about doing so on a bike).
I actually saw an spin scooter user today on the road going in the correct direction and with a helmet. Luckily I was on foot and didn't fall with the shock
I am more concerned that it is 'their' decision. I have never understood why England stands for all this 'pseudo private land'.
Who are the Royal Parks accoiuntable to?
I find it interesting (warning - anecdata alert!) how many more people seem willing to try out a dockless rental electric scooter then tried the yellow dockless rental (non-electric) bikes.
Maybe they just stand out more on the road so I notice them more?
I'd put it down to laziness.
E-scooters are fun to ride - you just stand on it and press the button (or twist the handle) to make it move. Rental bikes however, are made from the inners of neutron stars and require a world class sprinter to make them go at any speed, so they're not quite as accessible.
Don't use one with a machete down your trousers.
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/19312145.e-scooter-drugs-stop-teen-f...
I would think that "don't carry a machete down your trousers" is a more global guideline...
Thanks Royal Parks for crystallising this wider madness surrounding e-scooters.
"Royal Parks accused of having “lost the plot” over banning electric scooters"
How can you lose something you've never had?
'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.'
"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot."
Maybe someone more lawyerly than me can answer this:
If an e-scooter is being used as part of an official trial and within the boundaries defined for that trial, do The Royal Parks have any right to prevent that usage within the Parks (on roads open to motor traffic)?
If an e-scooter is not being used as part of an official trial and/or is outside the boundaries of the trial zone, could The Royal Parks permit the use of e-scooters (anywhere) within the park if it so wished?
It seems the land is classified the same way as Private so they can do what they wish with any transport. Rememeber they banned cyclists sometime in the last 12 months for a time. So they have a say and their own
private securityPolice force to enforce these rules.There is a trial near me and the escooters are geo-fenced so that they do not work in some areas. There is a map to let you know this in advance. So it would be feasible for the park to be excluded in the same way that a few majour roads are excluded in the trial near me.
There would need to be legislation to allwo the use of escooters in the park separately in the same way that legislation was needed for the various trials.
The rules of the Highway, including the Highway Code, have to apply to any road which is accessible by the public whether the road is on private property or not. As such any electrically propelled device (as opposed to electrically assisted) must be registered, taxed, and insured to use the road. It's a different situation on paths and open spaces.
"the parks are places for quiet recreation"
"the stealth of e scooters poses an unacceptable risk."
---
Which? Do they disturb the peace, or are they dangerous because they are stealthy?
Although I think a distinction needs to be drawn, on footpaths with no cars or bicycles then they should not be allowed. But there is no justifiation for banning them from roads used by cars (some of which are electric and therefore also stealthy)
I think it's clear they're talking about how cars stick to the roads, whereas scooters buzz along footpaths.
If they're going to be permitted in the RPs, then we'll need serious enforcement of rules about how people ride them.
They should restrict cars and electric scooters in royal parks. You only have to see the scooters in action to see why they shouldn't be legal. The majority of the people using them are on the pavements, or underage, and in Birmingham it's a free-for-all. The trials for these should all be pulled. They're dangerous, and the majority of people on them are breaking the rules, and enforcement also appears non-existent.
You do get that every single one of your arguments has been targeted at cyclists in the past - right?
How's about we let the trials complete before getting the torches and pitchforks out?
I thought it might sound that way...But that doesn't make these concerns less valid. Even blind safety campaigners are against these scooters and their misuse.
it's not genuinely about safety. If safety and noise was a key concern cars would have already been banned.
Pages