The Government has moved with unusual alacrity to address the concern expressed in recent weeks over the lax regulation of e-scooters. The measures follow evidence heard last week at the Oireachtas justice committee, where members were told of the dangers posed by scramblers, e-scooters and similar machines on Irish streets. Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly went further than expected, telling the committee that society would be better off without e-scooters and that he would support a ban.
Those remarks appear to have spurred the Government to action. On Monday, after the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, Minister of State Seán Canney and Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan met the Commissioner, new regulations were announced. From next month the use of e-scooters by under-18s will be prohibited, and helmets and high-visibility vests will become mandatory. Registration and licensing of every e-scooter will follow in the autumn, penalties for reclaiming a seized machine will rise sharply and gardaí are to be given stronger legal protection when pursuing e-scooters and e-bikes. An outright ban remains on the table.
The concern behind all this is clear and understandable. Children’s Health Ireland reports that more than a third of paediatric traumatic brain injury admissions to Temple Street this year were e-scooter related, a rise of 50 per cent in 12 months, with one or two children presenting at emergency departments every day. No government could reasonably ignore such figures.
Yet the new rules will create obvious contradictions. A 17-year-old will be barred from a 20km/h e-scooter while remaining entitled, at 16, to ride a 125cc motorcycle capable of well over 100km/h.
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Garda concerns about e-scooters are well-founded. They are cheap, quiet, portable and disposable, which has made them the favoured tool of street drug-dealing and anti-social behaviour. But as a detective garda wrote in The Irish Times this week, no member of the force is currently trained to conduct a pursuit. Meanwhile, 10 gardaí are currently before the courts over on-duty driving incidents and the promised training has been deferred to next year. Legislation which sends untrained officers into fast-moving encounters while leaving them exposed to prosecution risks becoming another law that exists only on paper.
Three distinct categories of vehicle are involved here: scramblers, e-bikes and e-scooters. Each requires regulation at the point of sale, and appropriate enforcement measures that gardaí are equipped and empowered to deliver.
