Concern has been expressed about Fife Council’s policy ecouraging cycling, including the use of E-scooters, on the Lade Braes, and data released by the Department of Transport indicates that this concern is well founded.
The DfT annual report – Reported Road casualties Great Britain, annual report: 2021 – reveals that there were 1,434 casualties involving e-scooters, of which 10 people were killed (a ten fold increase over the previous year) , 421 were seriously injured and 1,003 were slightly injured.
This is in stark contrast to the DfT’s 2020 statistics, which recorded 484 casualties involving e-scooters, including one death, 128 serious injuries and 355 slight injuries.
Neil Greig, director of policy and research at IAM RoadSmart, said: “The e-scooter carnage must stop. He says: “A tenfold increase in deaths related to e-scooters in just one year is utterly unacceptable”
“As e-scooter trials continue across the country, crashes involving e-scooters rose by 193% in 2021 compared to 2020.
The wider introduction of so called micromobility into the national transport picture must face up to the fact that this highly unregulated and impossible to manage emerging personal mobility trend must see these boys toys taken off the streets and pavements and out of all other public places due to the obvious fact these dangerous unstable devices are compromising the safety of all road users including pedestrians from whom e scooter riders are robbing the use of the pavements and without delivering the environmental benefits falsely claimed for them by the investors in making selling and using them.
