E-scooters and E-bikes: Regulation
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) for securing this debate and for all the campaigning she has been doing on this important issue. Illegally modified e-bikes and e-scooters have become more and more of a problem in Yeovil. Peter lives on Sherborne Road, which is a very busy road out of Yeovil. He is always very careful when he crosses, and he always sticks to the pavement; but for Peter, pavements have become just as dangerous as roads. Not for the first time, he was left one step away from A&E after someone came crashing by on an e-scooter doing 30 mph. Sadly, Peter is not alone. The problem is not just one or two troublemakers in Yeovil; this is happening at scale across our communities, and it often comes with other forms of antisocial behaviour. Carol has been telling me how she keeps seeing people on modified e-bikes travelling at speed down Middle Street in the wrong direction, dodging pedestrians. Nicki told me it is unsafe to take her seven-year-old nephew to the park because kids are crashing up and down on e-scooters. Katriana has told me about the near-misses involving dogs, young children and the elderly. Just the other day, I was out canvassing, and three lads shot past me on e-scooters in balaclavas shouting abuse at other residents. It is just a matter of time before someone gets really badly hurt—including the people riding these vehicles, as we have heard today. It goes without saying that we need our police to carry out focused enforcement interventions. We need intervention from the Government in the form of training and funding. We also need proper education campaigns on this—and by that, I do not just mean giving schools more work to do; we need something on the scale of the THINK! campaign, particularly on social media. In Parliament, we need to push for clearer legislation, because the current legal framework for e-bikes is confusing, outdated and rarely enforced. Most importantly, Government need to crack down properly on the supply chain and unregulated online marketplaces that are flooding our streets with these illegal vehicles. To get anywhere in Somerset, you pretty much have to drive. That means road tax, insurance and sticking to the rules. People in Yeovil are rightly angry that these people on illegal e-bikes and e-scooters and those who sell them do none of those things, put people at risk and get away with it. That cannot be allowed to go on any more.