E scooters

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stuffedpike20
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

You made one mistake there Des; you said 'streets' and not 'pavements'.
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Re: E scooters

Post by ampwhu »

i'm too old for one unfortunately. i'd probably injure myself of others if I was let loose on one. I have seen them and think they are great. but at around £500 for a good one, I won't be buying the missus or kids one.
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

The price will come down when the first million have been sold.
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

There was a Parliamentary debate about E scooters on July 1st. The go-ahead for hire E scooters was given on July 4th. You can see the debate on the Living Streets charity website.
The interesting thing that comes out of the debate is that evidence from other countries shows that the most likely people to use E scooters are people who are already pedestrians. So they will not be tempting car drivers to leave their cars at home.

News today is that GPs will be prescribing cycling to combat the obesity crisis; so pedestrians are going to be under fire from E scooters and cyclists on the pavements.
Pedestrians should have more rights than any other group, and yet they are being whittled away.
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Re: E scooters

Post by jagnut66 »

and yet they are being whittled away
The pedestrians? :o :lol:

Death by E-scooter......
1954 Series 2: 4 door: "Sally" -- Back on the ground with (slave) wheels and waiting to be resprayed......
1970 Triumph Herald 1200: "Hetty" -- Driven back from Llangollen in Wales (twice.....)
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

You know what I mean Jagnut.

On a serious note, there have already been 2 deaths of E scooter riders in London; and there will certainly now be more.
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Re: E scooters

Post by Murrayminor »

You mention E scooters but have missed off an important point, at the moment E scooters are illegal to use in the UK, the Government recently ran a consultation on the whole E scooter issue including the speed they are allowed to travel and the power output of the actual scooter.
Of note the consultation was for "rental E scooters" and not the E scooter so widely available for sale on the internet.

You cannot go buy an E scooter to use on the road in the UK, it has to be one of the official approved E scooter and then it is a rental scheme only any other use in public will render the rider open to prosecution.

On the subject of their use, I raised the point of the scooters being hired within a city to ease traffic but the end user will use the quickest point from A to B and that may well include pavements which is also illegal.

From a safety point of view, helmets will not be mandatory but optional.

see the result of the consultation here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... -responses

I'm against having E scooters in their current form on the roads without safety equipment being compulsory, the machines have limited braking capacity, minimal lighting and will not require registration (at this moment in time).

From my background in serious and fatal road collisions I can foresee further collisions involving these scooters being used improperly.
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geoberni
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Re: E scooters

Post by geoberni »

Totally agree with Murryminor.

Some damn fool on an e-scooter with be nipping in and out of traffic, get flattened by a car/truck/bus and it 'won't be their fault' because the blame is always on the larger vehicle; the one that will have blind spots, the poor driver who is doing their best, observing sensible rules of the road, but has it all undermined by an idiot who is ignoring all sensible self preservation instincts and is 'blameless'..... :evil:
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stuffedpike20
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

Just to 'nit pick' a bit, I did say 'the go-ahead for HIRE E scooters has been given".

I have no problem with E scooters being used right now by anyone, as long as they never go on the pavements and clash with pedestrians.
But of course they will be all over the pavements because there is no deterrent; just as there is no deterrent for cyclists on the pavements.
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Re: E scooters

Post by Murrayminor »

stuffedpike20 wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:27 am Just to 'nit pick' a bit, I did say 'the go-ahead for HIRE E scooters has been given".

I have no problem with E scooters being used right now by anyone, as long as they never go on the pavements and clash with pedestrians.
But of course they will be all over the pavements because there is no deterrent; just as there is no deterrent for cyclists on the pavements.
My apologies I didn't see the "HIRE" in your post.

The issue I raised was they are unsuitable for pavements and by allowing the hire scooters to run the government are opening the gates whereby uninformed members of the public will think they are free to rush to buy one of the imported e scooters and use them where they see fit.
If there was a registration system with number plates etc then the illegal scooters would stand out, whereas now the only difference will be the hire company's logo or colour scheme, and how difficult will it be to paint a scooter in a similar colour scheme.

As for using them on pavements, with the current COVID19 restrictions in place the Government has allocated funds to each local authority to reduce the amount of traffic in towns and cities and part of this plan is to reduce vehicle lanes on major routes into towns and cities.

Manchester now has a reduced running lane from Altrincham to the city centre to allow more cycles and rental E scooters to travel freely along this route into the city.

I can almost guarantee the rental E scooters will be seen on pavements and indeed the now pedestrianised section of Deansgate in Manchester City Centre.

As for enforcing this, again with limited numbers of police officers and especially those officers employed on traffic related duties there will always be a feeling nothing is being done, but we can only work with the tools we have.
Having six police officers on a shift to cover the whole of Manchester including the mandatory three on the strategic Road Network (Motorway to you and I) it spreads the blue line very thinly over Manchester.
This situation is repeated across the roads Policing network throughout the Country, so adding E scooters to the list unfortunately will fall down to dealing with the pavement riders when they cause a collision rather than having the resources to actively monitor those who choose to break the law.

As you can see cycles and E scooters will only be dealt with after the fact, there simply are not the resources to proactively deal with them.

Local response officers are put upon way more than is healthy so they don't have time to eat let alone sit and wait for an E scooter to turn up so they are automatically out of the equation, which just leave the handful of Roads Policing officers to do what they can.

My old beat was North Manchester which ran from the border of Lancashire to West Yorkshire and back across to the border of Merseyside and down to the city centre, when I was on the Roads Policing unit or Traffic as it was then there were three of us covering that area, that same area is now covered by one lone officer.

Don't even get me started on the 20,000 new recruits.

And Breathe..... :D
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stuffedpike20
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

My sympathy is also with the police Murrayminor.
However, a few years ago I did a Freedom of Information request and asked how many pavement cyclists had been issued with a fixed penalty notice in the last 12 months in Nottinghamshire. The answer was....none.
A couple of years ago I asked the same question, and was told by the police that they "no longer retain that information".
I was then told by local police that they no longer even carry the fixed penalty notices; and prefer to just talk to errant cyclists.



I would love to see a short period of Zero Tolerance in the UK. Every litter dropper, pavement cyclist, pavement parker, indicator shirker, non seatbelt wearing, mobile phone driver etc would have the book thrown at them. The Country would be a better place.
Shame it is never going to happen.
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Re: E scooters

Post by Murrayminor »

stuffedpike20 wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:31 am My sympathy is also with the police Murrayminor.
However, a few years ago I did a Freedom of Information request and asked how many pavement cyclists had been issued with a fixed penalty notice in the last 12 months in Nottinghamshire. The answer was....none.
A couple of years ago I asked the same question, and was told by the police that they "no longer retain that information".
I was then told by local police that they no longer even carry the fixed penalty notices; and prefer to just talk to errant cyclists.



I would love to see a short period of Zero Tolerance in the UK. Every litter dropper, pavement cyclist, pavement parker, indicator shirker, non seatbelt wearing, mobile phone driver etc would have the book thrown at them. The Country would be a better place.
Shame it is never going to happen.
The Police service (sadly no longer called a Police force) in the UK has become more social work than actually catching criminals.
I totally agree with your sentiments, when parking was made a local authority issue the Police lost a small amount of control over the state of the roads, yes we can still deal with vehicles for causing unnecessary obstruction but we have to issue a ticket before the vehicle can be removed and 9 times out of 10 the owner comes running and the matter is dealt with my means of VA (verbal advice).
This is down to officers time allow me to break it down.

10am: Vehicle seen on the street causing obstruction/riding a scooter on a pavement

By the time the vehicle is checked out on the computer system, the rider/driver is checked, licence, insurance, address verified for the issue of a summons an hour has past.

11am: If the person is being dealt with for an offence then the vehicle can be seized, there is then the triplicate form to complete with all the above details, request a recovery truck to collect said vehicle.

12pm tow truck arrives, complete yet more paperwork take photographs of the vehicle (recording any damage before the vehicle moves) this will include a E scooter as we are not insured to carry seized items in police vehicles

1pm offender sent on their way and resume duty

So that's 3 hours dealing with the initial incident.

Back at the station another hour inputting the details of the offence to our system and registering the vehicle on the property system, updating the intelligence in case of complaint with photographs of the vehicle.

Submit the summons and await the inevitable court case.

Numerous emails from the CPS to and fro requesting minor details etc

case file updated and has to be kept updated every couple of days.

Court date set, they mainly fall on a Rest day so its off to court, get to court at 09:00hrs (god forbid a Police officer should be late) the defendant arrives at 11:15hrs (nothing said about being late) then sit around if your case is a floating trial.

Break for lunch, return after lunch, speak with the court usher to find the defendant has not returned after lunch, another search of the courthouse, tannoy etc.

Defendant turns up an hour late (nothing said abut being late).

Finally court is in session, nothing is passed to the officer outside and the defendant comes out of court smiling and happy and walks away.
Next case now being heard, the officer outside is left in the dark until close of play when the CPS inform the officer the defendant was dealt with and can pay the £xx fine at 50p a week for the next year or so.

Fine never paid, Police officer gets a letter stating the fine has not been paid but instead of getting a warrant for non payment, the case is dropped without consultation with the Police officer.

That is the current situation and a timeline of how long it can take to deal with a simple case of carless driving or unnecessary obstruction.

Now you may understand why so many people are given verbal advice.

The summons/court process is overly complicated for simple matters, the above doesn't involve a custody office, for that you can add another 24 hours dealing with a prisoner.
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stuffedpike20
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

Thanks for explaining that Murrayminor. Very interesting.
Surely we can't go on like this; something needs to change!
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geoberni
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Re: E scooters

Post by geoberni »

Murrayminor wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 10:11 am
My old beat was North Manchester which ran from the border of Lancashire to West Yorkshire and back across to the border of Merseyside and down to the city centre, when I was on the Roads Policing unit or Traffic as it was then there were three of us covering that area, that same area is now covered by one lone officer.
When I broke down on Rutland stretch of the A1 a couple of years ago, while heading to the Anniversary event, viewtopic.php?f=1&t=69069&hilit=Anniversary#p629851
I had a good chat with the 2 Officers who came out.

Leicestershire used to maintain a specialist Traffic Unit in Oakham just to cover their short stretch of the A1. Now there's not even a proper station in Oakham, just a Mon-Fri 10:00 - 16:00 presence.
On that Sunday Morning at 07:00, they had come over from Melton Mowbray, and because of that, Officers from nearer Leicester somewhere had come up to Melton to deal with a street fight - heavens knows where the drunks had come from for a fight at 7.00am....
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Re: E scooters

Post by myoldjalopy »

stuffedpike20 wrote: Sun Jul 26, 2020 10:32 am News today is that GPs will be prescribing cycling to combat the obesity crisis; so pedestrians are going to be under fire from E scooters and cyclists on the pavements.
Thats kinda funny - I don't think that many obese individuals are likely to jump on a bike and pedal off into a slim and healthy future just 'cause their doctor suggested it! Even if they do, they will give up at the first sign of a hill! Some people like being active, others don't - and they are the ones more likely to be obese.
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Re: E scooters

Post by Murrayminor »

stuffedpike20 wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2020 12:35 pm Thanks for explaining that Murrayminor. Very interesting.
Surely we can't go on like this; something needs to change!
Unfortunately UK Governments, whichever flavour you prefer,seem to think by throwing a few extra bobbies at the problem its solved.

The stark truth is the 20,000 officers promised will not make up the deficit of officers leaving the job for various reasons such as retirement, ill health, or just had enough.

In my station alone I can count 6 officers who left the Police to go driving trains as the pay and conditions were better.

The public perception of the Police is at an all time low and it doesn't seem to be getting any better, so trying to deal with minor offences is sadly being ignored as resources are directed to high profile policing to give the impression there are more officers than there actually are.

Yes indeed something has to be done, but it will take an awful lot to restore public confidence in the Police and even more so for the Police to have the time to be on the beat again catching criminals rather than social work.
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

Very interesting.
Thanks for the insight. It sounds like nasty people are going to get away with doing nasty things for the foreseeable future.
Very depressing. :(
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Re: E scooters

Post by jagnut66 »

Defendant turns up an hour late (nothing said abut being late).

Finally court is in session, nothing is passed to the officer outside and the defendant comes out of court smiling and happy and walks away.
Next case now being heard, the officer outside is left in the dark until close of play when the CPS inform the officer the defendant was dealt with and can pay the £xx fine at 50p a week for the next year or so.

Fine never paid, Police officer gets a letter stating the fine has not been paid but instead of getting a warrant for non payment, the case is dropped without consultation with the Police officer.

That is the current situation and a timeline of how long it can take to deal with a simple case of carless driving or unnecessary obstruction.

Now you may understand why so many people are given verbal advice.
Extremely depressing and in this regard the police have my total sympathy.
It leaves me wondering why we bother having a police force anymore, with their hands tied so far up behind their backs with bureaucracy and endless paperwork and then not really allowed or encouraged to 'police' when they do finally get to step outside the station.
This without going near the issues of the endless cries of 'racism' and 'victimisation' which the PC (ironic phrase here) brigade tout around like a stick to beat them further with, is it any wonder that the police force are hemorrhaging officers at an alarming rate and are unable to hang onto those who might have made good detectives, ones who actually solved crimes.........
Why would you want to work for a police force in a state run by a PC liberal elite that seems determined to criticise and brow beat you at every turn.
Perhaps they fear that to effectively police this country might contradict (or expose) the doctrine they are so busy trying to ram down everybody's throats / brainwash people with......................
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1970 Triumph Herald 1200: "Hetty" -- Driven back from Llangollen in Wales (twice.....)
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Re: E scooters

Post by stuffedpike20 »

Theresa May got rid of 20.000 officers. Boris has promised 20.000 new ones. This will take us back up to 2010 numbers, and there were nowhere near enough even then.
The last Labour government promised to be 'tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime'; but I can't remember that particularly being the case. Although things did seem better back then.

It is often said that 'if you give people an inch; they will take a mile'; and I fear that this is what has been going on in the UK for a while.
Drivers were allowed to use hand held mobile phones when they first became popular. Because of this, it was much harder to tell drivers that they could no longer use them when it became illegal.
Drivers are making up their own rules on the road now, and because of the lack of police to tell them that they can't; things are getting worse rapidly. I have seriously thought about giving up driving because of this. No matter which car I am driving, even the shortest trip seems to be punctuated by dangerous behaviour by other drivers. I am often on the road early on Sunday mornings; a time when you would think it would be a pleasure to drive; but no; other drivers seem to think that speed limits are not mandatory on Sunday mornings. (Red traffic lights seem to be non mandatory on Sunday mornings too.)
These drivers know that the police now rely on dash cam footage to catch them, but they also know that not all cars are fitted with dash cams.
Maybe it is just me. I drive a few thousand miles each year. Maybe I am not doing enough driving to accept the mad conditions on the road; conditions that other drivers seem to happily put up with.
Whichever government decides to tackle policing properly in the future is going to have a massive task ahead of it.

P.S. Mike thinks the police are run by a 'liberal elite'. Priti Patel is in charge of the police; would you describe her as 'liberal'? I wouldn't!
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Re: E scooters

Post by Murrayminor »

One of my pet hates is drivers throwing litter and I used to regularly stop vehicles and request the occupant to pick up their litter even if it meant stopping the traffic.
It showed the public we were out there watching and secondly showed them something was being done to uphold standards.

Sadly now the officers on the street do not have a minute to spare, fire brigade policing being to blame.

(Fire brigade Policing is rushing from one job to another, put the fire out so to speak then onto the next)
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