E-scooters are set to be legalised in the next three months. Photo: Lachlan Roberts.
E-scooter enthusiasts will soon be able to travel around the nation’s capital in their two-wheeled vehicles with the ACT Government hoping to change the road rules to accommodate the new mode of transport by the end of the year.
E-scooters and similar devices are currently not permitted to be used in public areas in the ACT but Minister for Road Safety Shane Rattenbury hopes to have that changed in the coming months.
After a month of public consultation which saw more than 650 people fill out a survey, Mr Rattenbury said the Government will now develop a framework for the use of e-scooters which ACT Policing will enforce.
The YourSay community survey asked the community’s views on what the legal maximum speed on an e-scooter should be, where these devices should be allowed to travel, and what restrictions should be put in place on who could use the devices.
Nearly 50 per cent of respondents said 16-year-olds and up should be allowed to ride these devices unsupervised. Riding e-scooters in bike lanes had strong support with 89 per cent as well as allowing them to be ridden on footpaths (75 per cent).
Mr Rattenbury said the consultation also showed areas that people were worried about, with older Canberrans sharing their concern about e-scooters being quiet and difficult to hear when approaching.
“We will take these contributions on board in developing a framework that encourages the use of e-scooters, while not compromising on road safety,” Mr Rattenbury said. “We heard that the use of safety equipment such as a helmet, bell, braking system and lights are necessary safety requirements for these devices.”
The maximum speed for e-scooters was a major talking point, with 44 per cent saying the maximum speed limit fo the scooters should be under 25 kilometres per hour, while 36 per cent supported 25 kilometres per hour as the maximum speed.
“Particularly on speed, people have drawn a distinction between being on a dedicated bike path compared to being in a high-pedestrian area,” Mr Rattenbury said. “So we will look at differentiated speed limits.”
Mr Rattenbury said the Government will also run a tender process to see which operators would like to operate a share-scooter theme in the ACT after the framework is introduced, with at least five different operators already expressing their interest to the ACT Government.
“There is a big growth area in commercial share-scooter schemes,” Mr Rattenbury said. “We need to get a regulatory framework in place because operators would like to come and operate in Canberra.”
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Or you could just walk ???
Is it Australia or the ACT that is slow to accept innovation and change ?!! 🤔🤔
We are “obsessed” with cars because Canberra was planned for cars, not for scooters which were toys when I was young. Now they are powered toys for hipsters.
Maybe it’s time for a re-make of Malcolm, with e-scooters, drones (of various types) and shiny red trams – Canberra could lead the world (so to speak) with the first carbon-neutral heist movie…..
…to be filmed in a pop-up, carbon-neutral bubble.
From a BBC article on EPVs:
How dangerous are they?
An explosion in the popularity of motorised scooters appears to have caught governments off guard, and companies that manufacture and supply scooters are not currently required to provide certain safety features - some scooters only have one brake and can be difficult to stop when travelling at speed.
Since January 2018, at least 11 deaths have been linked to the scooters in cities including Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, Stockholm and London.
Hundreds of people have been injured in road traffic incidents involving the vehicles:
I can’t see the issue here. We have electric bikes, we have manual scooters. Allowing electric scooters is hardly a step into some sort of new and weird territory.
E-Bikes are peddle assist. They're not 100% driven from the motor. They're are actual electric bikes however not as common as far as I can tell.
These seem to fall under the same category as segways.
Jacob Mulholland fair point. But the technical difference is relatively minor to people’s concerns about their introduction. It’s just another form of personal transport. If the scooters could go faster than a bike I could understand new concerns.
Mudcrab Metcalfe ride scooter at luncheon
Mudcrabs on scooters going to lunch! Good one!!
So if these are allowed, can Segways be next?
Peter, segways were ok'd a couple of years ago.
Terry, only for that tour company around the lake? Can you ride one through Civic?
Peter, any cycle path
Peter Gersbach https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6038491/segways-to-be-approved-for-recreational-use-on-canberra-paths-and-roads/digital-subscription/
From reading the comments Im pretty staggered at how bad we are at adapting to change in oz. These things are everywhere in Europe and they seem to have no major dramas. But in Australia we act like if its not a car it will kick off the apocalypse.....
Guy Manton I’ve seen one wheel unicycles from Segway being riden in Paris - on the road and on footpaths, no one batts an eyelid - they look fantastic, the rider, in business suits, with earphones in and sending messages on their mobile phones 😱 and traffic giving way, if that happened here, people will be hyper-ventilating and heads will be exploding 🤯🤯🤯!!!
Annie Wyer yeah Im in Europe at the mo, and its making me realise how car obsessed we are in oz. And other transport is only ever considered in the context of how it will affect cars.
Guy Manton and it was the “utes will be taken off the road” during the LNP campaign that tells it like it is... grunt car obsessed to boot!
Will they be required to have a bell or warning device? Probably wouldn’t make much difference, bikes have bells but bike riders don’t know how to use them. Think there won’t be much difference between the attitude to pedestrians among scooters than there is with too many cyclists. Must brush up on martial arts.
Or more that some pedestrians don’t hear the bell. I have rung it, but they don’t hear the bell because of earphones. Ring the bell, no reaction, ring the bell again, still no reaction. With those earphones of theirs they are in a world of their own; not this world. So unaware of their surrounds.
Will the government build heaps of free, fast recharging stations all over Canberra?
Piet Arnold my scoot life is looking up
Monica Arnold great success
Allow them of course like QLD.
Now Canberrans can take their lane merging skills onto the footpath...
lol, it's like a script from Utopia. Instead of hiring road safety experts they decided to do it via hardly accessible online public survey. Saves money and they can say they "consulted widely" :D
Veronika Sain Was there an option that said, “We don’t want them”?
No - so they’d made at least one decision.
Veronika Sain I did the survey and do not want was, in fact an option.
I did it too and didn’t see that as an option. 🤔
Oh well, back to them not being able to make any decisions themselves. 😆
Just more pandering to a minority group!
Do you have to wear a helmet?
Sort of don’t see the difference with a pushy.
Only when I'm riding my bike. How about you?
Awesome, I can't wait :)
Yes it's wonderful they are all over the footpaths in Auckland, sod the pedestrians.
Grace Morgan and Adelaide
How long before one kills a pedestrian walking on a footpath?