E-scooter trial rolls on despite fears from the footpath

Melbourne will need parking spots and better bike lanes for e-scooters if they are fully legalised, according to advocates for the disabled and elderly, who say the devices are endangering people on footpaths.

The Victorian government confirmed on Tuesday a two-month extension to its year-long trial with e-scooter companies Neuron and Lime across the City of Melbourne, Yarra and Port Phillip council areas.

The trial involves 2500 e-scooters deployed across three inner-city councils. Credit:Luis Ascui

It is illegal to use privately owned e-scooters on public roads, but the Neuron and Lime rental scooters can be ridden on the streets under the trial, which will now run to March 31.

The Department of Transport says the extension will help it to decide whether to legalise both rental and privately owned scooters.

The trial started on February 1 with 1500 scooters and the two companies have parked another 1000 on inner-city footpaths as their popularity has grown. There have been 2.8 million rides completed in the City of Melbourne alone.

A Department of Transport spokesperson said it extended the trial to “make sure we have the best possible dataset to make an informed decision about the future of e-scooters on Victorian roads”.

But critics of the scheme said hire operators and Victoria Police had failed to stop scooters being illegally ridden on footpaths and obstructing pedestrians.

Vision Australia advocacy manager Chris Edwards said vision-impaired Victorians were concerned about being hit by riders or tripping over parked hire scooters.

“A lot of people are recognising that this ‘micromobility’ is an important mode of transport for the community,” Edwards said.

“[But] in our view there’s not the infrastructure that supports that – bike lanes, appropriate places where you can park the scooters so they’re not a hazard – still hasn’t caught up. Without [that]… they’ll be an ongoing issue.”

Chris Potaris, chief executive of the Council of the Ageing Victoria, said his organisation had heard similar concerns from older pedestrians that needed to be addressed before the trial was extended or scooters were permanently legalised.

“There needs to be effective enforcement of the laws and regulations surrounding the use of e-scooters so that they benefit everyone – not just those riding them,” Potaris said.

More than 400 people were admitted to Victorian hospital in the 2021/22 financial year after a surge in crashes involving hired or private e-scooters. At least two people were killed last year.

Data from Monash University’s Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit showed at least five of those crashes involved scooters colliding with pedestrians, but no figures were available for the total number of pedestrians injured.

Victoria Police said it had recorded 252 e-scooter collisions in the 12 months to December 1. In that time, it issued 275 fines for footpath riding, 208 for not wearing a helmet and 275 for carrying more than one passenger. Police had impounded 15 privately owned scooters, a spokesperson said.

Stephen Coulter, from the e-scooter consultancy Zipidi, said hire scooters were restricted to 20km/h and limited to where they could travel by GPS trackers, making them safer than the private scooters sold at major retailers and commonly ridden around Melbourne.

“We think governments been very slow in legalising what’s a proven form of transport,” he said. “As soon as you legalise them, then you can publicly communicate what the rules are, what the vehicle’s standards should be and enforce those.”

Governments around the world are figuring out whether e-scooter hire companies can operate safely in their major cities. Stockholm halved the number of scooters available for rent and banned footpath parking last year.

Paris has limited scooter speeds to 10km/h in some areas and Rome has a 6km/h speed limit in shared pedestrian areas, while the Norwegian capital Oslo has banned rentals at night in an attempt to reduce crashes. They are limited to 20km/h in Melbourne’s trial.

Lime spokesman Will Peters said the company was “thrilled” about the trial extension, after the first 11 months showed its scooters were a “safe, dependable and highly utilised transport service”.

A Neuron spokesperson said that “the overwhelming majority of people ride responsibly, with over 99.99% of trips ending safely and without incident”.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said scooters were a “green, sustainable and easy to use mode of transport” and welcomed the trial extension as “a good opportunity to keep working on the safest way they can be used on our streets and roads”.

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