[Closed] Electric scooters - illegal……

If it's going to help her be a bit more independent, and she's sensible enough to not go buzzing pensioners, then I'd get her one. Illegal or not, they are pretty widely used and as long as those using them show some common sense and respect (as any other user or shared road/pavement/etc does of course) then I don't see the problem.

I would imagine at some point legislation will change and they'll be fine for use.

I think they are illegal to use on either road or pavement unless they are those rental ones.

They are as appropriate for use on pavements as bikes are. We have a rental scheme here and one of the headline rules is: "Don't ride on the pavement - only cycle lanes and roads".

So eureka – get her an electric scooter I thought. except they are illegal…… to use on pavement, not road

Privately owned e-scooters are illegal on road and pavement. They can only legally be used on private land. Some cities are trialling rental ones which are heavily geo-fenced and often have built in speed-limiters too - however they are at least legal to use on roads.

That said - most people are unlikely to care too much. Occasionally the police have a well-publicised "crackdown" on them and seize a few so it's worth considering if you can afford to be relieved of one in that manner.

They are illegal (outside of the rental exemptions) on the road as well since they are currently classed as a motorised vehicle and hence would need to meet all the requirements for a car or motorbike eg mot, tax, insurance and also be an approved design. The latter in particular is problematic and I dont think any have actually been passed for use.

The cheaper ones I've seen people using don't look like they aren't very good at all on any kind of hill.

It is a stupid rule - they are widely available to buy (Argos, Halfords, Decathlon etc) and they seem a pretty decent solution for cheap transport.

They are as appropriate for use on pavements as bikes are.

So often fine then.

"worth considering if you can afford to be relieved of one in that manner."

It's not just having it seized, you can also get points on your license (to be applied when you eventually get one, if you don't already?) and a conviction for driving without tax/MOT/license/insurance.

So eureka – get her an electric scooter I thought. except they are illegal…… to use on pavement, not road

I’m tempted to go ahead. Is she likely to be thrown into prison for the next 40 years? Does anyone actually care?

Whilst they may be a logical and totally sensible solution to environmentally friendly "short journey" transport they are illegal outside the agreed rental based trials. Send your MP an email asking them to hurry up and extend use etc.

In the meantime many police forces are actively enforcing so you can expect her to get stopped and prosecuted at some point for some or all of the following:
- driving without insurance
- driving without a license
- driving a motorised vehicle on the pavement

She'll get 6pts on her non-existent driving license and probably £300 in fixed penalty - but it could be much more. The scooter will be confiscated. If she says you bought if for her and told her to do it then they can pursue you for "causing and permitting" either instead or as well as her (more likely to do this if she is <16). That will be points on your license instead.

e-bike? If she can scoot on pavement safelty / responsible then she could cycle on pavement -- generally agreed by police not to prosecute for that where its the safer option and a much smaller fine and no points if they did.

Illegal but unlikely to attract much/any police attention - based on what's not happening in my area.
Will your daughter be on road or pavement?
If she'll be using scooter at 10pm what about lights - F&R - and hi-viz?

Around here the Police are very keen on seizing them whenever they can. That's in Derbyshire by the way.

They're a great sustainable transport solution for cities. Sadly the infrastructure hasn't caught up to their use yet, plus the fact that there's your usual cohort of irresponsible users derestricting them and riding like idiots which has drawn the attention of the police.

Here in Spain they're now widely used and tolerated, although there's sadly been a number of cases of older people and younger children killed by out of control morons riding fast on the pavement.

Poly + 1.

The £300 fine and 6 points are standard for for driving w/o insurance. That's going to be hugely problematic when she turns 17, gets a provisional and needs insurance or when she later passes her test and obtains a full licence limited to 6 points under the New Drivers Act.

E-bike is a far better solution.

when she later passes her test and obtains a full licence limited to 6 points under the New Drivers Act.

The "good news" is the New Drivers Act only applies to points after you pass your test. The bad news is that if she then did get six more points (one mobile phone use, or letting her insurance lapse, or driving far too fast) she'd be disqualified for six months.

The £300 fine and 6 points are standard for for driving w/o insurance. That’s going to be hugely problematic when she turns 17, gets a provisional and needs insurance or when she later passes her test and obtains a full licence limited to 6 points under the New Drivers Act.

How does that work in practice? AIUI if a new driver gets 6 points in the first 2 years they lose their license, so would someone have to pass their test in order to lose their license to then re take?

Edit: ah, cheers poly

They’re a great sustainable transport solution for cities. Sadly the infrastructure hasn’t caught up to their use yet,

So not really a great solution then;)
As a road user in London they are a dangerous nuisance.
They can’t cope with the degraded road surfaces so weave around randomly, the design makes them unstable when used one handed so signalling is out, the lights fitted to them are not suitable for road use. Then add in the chipped ones, the general crappy road manners of the riders and their use on pavements and there worth is considerably reduced.

Good for getting head and neck injuries though.

Anyone know the rules on a standard "kick" scooter, ie the adult sized ones that have no motor on them. Can these be ridden on the pavement with no restrictions ?

Then add in the chipped ones, the general crappy road manners of the riders and their use on pavements and there worth is considerably reduced

like I've said before, if you live in a city with no want or need to ever own a car or licence; if you live outside of the norms of law abiding society; or if you just dont consider the long term consequences of your actions, then the worst outcome is

£300 in fixed penalty...[and] The scooter will be confiscated.

How many day's Tube travel (or in your case, evening taxis) is that? Go buy another scooter the next day.

if you care about having a driving license, not having a criminal conviction, and so on then the consequense is far greater.

Guess what the above does to the average user's road sense and courtesy.

I dont own one. I'll likely buy one the day they are legalised.

If there's a footpath for a scooter, there's a footpath for a bike. If you ride considerately and don't hit the school run before 3pm, they'll be quiet enough not to inconvenience anyone.

However, assuming your daughter is an adult, and completely not trying to sound like a dick, step back and let her deal with this herself.

1000s in use all over Cambridge. 1% legitimate trial scheme, the rest all illegal.

They should just legalise them all, they're not going anywhere and seem to get on fine with cars (no worse than bikes).

Not sure it's much quicker or easier than an e-bike? Although much cheaper obviously.

Anyone know the rules on a standard “kick” scooter, ie the adult sized ones that have no motor on them. Can these be ridden on the pavement with no restrictions ?

S. 72 Highway Act 1835:

Penalty on persons committing nuisances by riding on footpaths, &c.

If any person shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers; or shall wilfully lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any such footpath or causeway; or shall tether any horse, ass, mule, swine, or cattle, on any highway, so as to suffer or permit the tethered animal to be thereon; every person so offending in any of the cases aforesaid shall for each and every such offence forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding level 2 on the standard scale, over and above the damages occasioned thereby.

Does it need to be an eScooter? Could you get her a non-powered one? Without knowing the terrain, it could be a nice way to travel IMO. I've considered one for jumping off the bus early to avoid the last cross town section which always is the slowest due to congestion. Would save 20 mins on the bus for a 10min scoot.

Edit: this was pre pandemic permanent WFH.

There is an exhaustive discussion of what s. 72 means in Coates vs DPP (a 2011 case about a Segway).

Whether it is powered or not is not the issue.

ETA para 84 of the judgment (Langstaff J.'s supporting comments) gives a good overview of how the interpretation of s. 72 should be approached when other devices, powered and unpowered, fall to be considered.

Should they be legal? Maybe, maybe not. But as it stands they aren’t.

Have you thought about An Actual Bicycle?

For Poly and Tom Howard. Further clarification regarding endorsements and the New Drivers Act.

Ermm.....

New drivers
Your licence will be cancelled (revoked) if you get 6 or more points within 2 years of passing your test.

Points on your provisional licence
Any penalty points on your provisional licence that have not expired will be carried over to your full licence when you pass your test. However, your licence will be cancelled if you get any further penalty points that take you up to a total of 6 or more within 2 years of passing your driving test.

In essence, passing a test does not reset / wipe the slate clean of any points accrued as a learner. The points are subject to the same 3 year endorsement period as most offences accrued on a full licence.

Provisional licences aren't subject to the NDA, so have a 12 point limit before disqualification under totting up. A provisional licence holder who passes their test with 6 or more points can still obtain a full licence but NDA rules means their new full licence is 'brimmed' (regardless if it's got 6 or 11 points) and they can't accrue a single additional point in the first 2 years from passing their test. If they do, the licence is revoked by DVLA, rather than a court disqualification.

This also means that any teenager on an e-scooter who is just below the age of applying for a provisional can be stopped and fined, have a DVLA driver record created with 6 or more points for the e-scooter offences, then obtain a provisional with those 6+ points already on it, pass their test and then carry the 6+ points through the 2 year NDA period. As I said, problematic! Hate to think what their insurance premium would be.

I’d paint it up to look like one from a local scheme
The Police won’t take a second look 😀

From the Mets website
Legal use of an e-scooter
It's legal to use an e-scooter on private land with the permission of the land owner.

Where a trial rental scheme is running, it's legal to use a rental e-scooter on a public road or cycle lane, provided you have the correct licence and follow road traffic regulations.
Penalties and offences
If you don't have a licence, or the correct licence, or are riding without insurance you could face a Fixed Penalty notice:

with a £300 fine and six penalty points on your licence for having no insurance
up to £100 fine and three to six penalty points for riding without the correct licence
You could also be committing an offence if you're caught:

riding on a pavement; Fixed Penalty Notice and possible £50 fine
using a mobile phone while riding; £100 and six penalty points
riding through red lights; Fixed Penalty Notice, £100 fine and possible penalty points
drink driving: the same as if you were driving a car, you could face court imposed fines, a driving ban and possible imprisonment
If you're using an e-scooter in public in an antisocial manner, you can also risk the e-scooter being seized under section 59 of the Police Reform Act.

When riding an e-scooter, we would always recommend wearing safety protection such as a helmet and to keep to the speed limit.

She doesn't want to cycle because the roads are too busy, so you're thinking of getting her a scooter so that she can ride on... erm... ?

She doesn’t want to cycle because the roads are too busy, so you’re thinking of getting her a scooter so that she can ride on… erm… ?

I can see the logic - a lot of why cycling on roads is scary is cos of the speed differential if an untrained rider is doing 10-12mph. At least on an e-bike or e-scooter, you can do 15-20mph and move with the flow a bit.

drink driving: the same as if you were driving a car, you could face court imposed fines, a driving ban and possible imprisonment

We have a legal e scooter trail scheme in Cambridge and they all shut down at 8pm to stop pissed people riding them (obs assuming no one gets smashed before 8pm).

On my days off I like to start with a few cans of special brew then hire an e-scooter just to make my point.

@ cougar - I specifically said to use on pavement, not road

No you didn't.

In any case,

I'm sure your daughter is a model citizen. But round here these things are a bloody menace universally piloted by utter knuckles. On the roads they have zero road sense and on the pavement the speed differential between vehicle and pedestrian is too great.

If she doesn't want to ride on the road as it's too busy and you don't care about the legalities of riding on the pavement, why not just get a bike and cycle on the pavement when it's busy?

Because she point blank refuses to cycle….😤
And I don’t think there is anyway to stick a bike at her work anyway

Because she point blank refuses to cycle….😤

Walk, then? 🤷‍♂️ Is there a safety issue here, a young woman on her own at 10pm? Or something else I'm missing?

And I don’t think there is anyway to stick a bike at her work anyway

You don't think so, or there actually isn't?

That being the case, is there somewhere for her to stick a scooter?

That being the case, is there somewhere for her to stick a scooter?

Scooters fold up really small, so just stick it under the desk. One big advantage over bikes....

I have tried one of the rental scooters and felt a lot less safe than I do cycling. One of the big issues was indicating - the scooter did not have indicators - I could use my arm to signal left but not right as I would have to take my hand off the bars and so would slow to a stop.

The small wheels did not cope at all well with potholes and other poor surfaces.

The rental scooters also have crap lights although that could be fixed by attaching lights to body or helmet.

Overall I think that scooters could be an asset in certain places but not really on the busy roads and hill type journey you describe. E-bike would seem to be the sensible choice. If she does not want to ride one then I would tell her that she can fund taxis or walk.

I've just rented my first one and was shocked at how slow I was compared to the traffic around me. All ok once we got onto the shared use paths, but I wouldn't want to use it on the main route into the city centre from home.

Cougar - you seem to have missed pretty much everything I’ve written. She usually walks there - it’s about 4 miles. It’s also a fair hill. She Doesn’t really want to walk back, understandably

I’d like her to cycle but a) she doesn’t want to; b) it’s A roads c ) potential bike storage issue. There’s a section I find pretty hairy (near m25 junction, dual carriageway feeding onto overpass) which is pretty hairy for me in daylight

Scooting sensibly up the pavement seemed a good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.

I’ve just rented my first one and was shocked at how slow I was compared to the traffic around me. All ok once we got onto the shared use paths, but I wouldn’t want to use it on the main route into the city centre from home.

15 mph isn't any faster than average non sporty cyclist riding to work by bike.

How old is the person in question? - would a 50cc moped be an option?

15 mph isn’t any faster than average non sporty cyclist riding to work by bike.

Rental ones are usually limited to about 12mph and they'll often drop to a lot less in pedestrianised areas, like 5-8mph max. They're geo-fenced. Private ones will quite often do up to 25mph or so, there's a few of the more heavily built ones will do even more.

Amazing how much time and tech we can put into restricting a quiet clean mode of micro-transport but any hint of fitting cars with speed limiters is met with howls of outrage. Ultimately, it makes rental scooters a really poor choice of transport - in fact downright scary to use on roads since they're so slow - which the cynic in me suggests it's a way for Government to look at the trials and say "yeah but no-one is really using them so they can stay illegal, carry on driving everywhere".

Cougar – you seem to have missed pretty much everything I’ve written.

No, I'm trying to understand what you've written and you've not answered anything I asked.

I’d like her to cycle but a) she doesn’t want to; b) it’s A roads c ) potential bike storage issue.

a) so what, walk then, b) it's still A roads on a scooter, c) potential scooter storage issue.

Scooting sensibly up the pavement seemed a good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.

Riding sensibly up the pavement seems an equally good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, rather your proposed solution doesn't seem to solve any of the problem. It all seems to boil down to "daughter says no," roads are an irrelevance if you're simply proposing she scoots on the pavement rather than riding on it.

Does she want a scooter or are we back to a) again?

CBT and a 125.
More spendy but probably safer and def less illegal.

Plan.

How old is she?

See the odd person getting around on them in letchworth. Think they're brilliant - definitely a big part of the future of local transport. I wouldn't mind one for my shopping trips!

Roller skates?

Faster than walking? - check
Ok on pavement? - check
Easy to store? - check
Cheap? - check
Legal? - check... I think...
Good for hills? - well downhill yes, up, not so much

Rental ones are usually limited to about 12mph and they’ll often drop to a lot less in pedestrianised areas, like 5-8mph max. They’re geo-fenced. Private ones will quite often do up to 25mph or so, there’s a few of the more heavily built ones will do even more.

The trial rental scooters in Cambridge are 15 mph on roads, no slower than a bike. They're pretty nippy as well.

All roads (bar ring road) are supposedly 20mph so not really disadvantaged (although obvs no car ever goes as slow as 20mph outside rush hour).

On my days off I like to start with a few cans of special brew then hire an e-scooter just to make my point.

I hope you don't - police pulled loads of people one night on our rental escooters and did them all for drunk driving which went onto their driving licences

Get her one of those horrendous electric conversion kits that all the delivery cyclists seem to use on their 'pedal' bikes

Roller skates?

I commuted on roller blades a few times. Very much not as easy as it sounds in a typical suburban situation!

Scooting sensibly up the pavement seemed a good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.

I think that option is not viable so escooter is out. You should not be riding a personal escooter anyway and riding on the pavement would seem worse than riding on road.

I used to use a larger wheeled push along scooter to go 3 miles to work and it is much faster than walking and I never had any issues from police although nowadays I guess I could as they would just see it as another scooter and lump it in with escooters

Get an e-scooter. Make sure she knows she's "travelling". As a sovereign citizen she is an owner of the land and the officer for the person that is her gives permission for her to use the e-scooter on the land.

Job jobbed and many confused officers of the law.

But round here these things are a bloody menace universally piloted by utter knuckles. On the roads they have zero road sense and on the pavement the speed differential between vehicle and pedestrian is too great.

As are cars, no? OK they don't drive on the pavements normally. They just park on them instead forcing me to walk onto the road in places or cause risk when I'm cycling.

I'm not addressing the scooter legality point there I realise. But that aside it follows that those less bothered about the law ride them currently and that's seen in the riding attitudes at times. More responsible types are scared off using them by the illegality.
I work for a company who sells them and drive in Bristol a fair bit, for disclaimer/balance/relevance. I don't ride a scooter though as I have bikes.

Riding sensibly up the pavement seems an equally good option. She could get there and back in reasonable time.

SHE DOESN'T WANT TO RIDE A BIKE TO WORK!

I’m not trying to be argumentative

You are. Agressive quoting and not really reading the OP doesn't help.

breatheeasy
Free Member

On my days off I like to start with a few cans of special brew then hire an e-scooter just to make my point.

I hope you don’t – police pulled loads of people one night on our rental escooters and did them all for drunk driving which went onto their driving licences

slight thread de-rail....
how does that work, you don't need a driving license to hire one of these things do you?
Surely its the same as cycling drunk, you can't be done for DD but you can be done for various other offences, none of which are endorsable on your (if you have one) License

I'm with Cougar on this one. E bike ridden sensibly on pavement where required.
Leaving aside the right and wrongs unless through a council approved scheme E scooters are illegal to use in a public place.
She might get away with it, she might get the scooter confiscated on the first day of use.

Edit..
re-read the OP, daughter dosnt want to cycle.
Oh well, kinda out of legal options then...

"Aggressive quoting" sounds like something Rimmer would write up Lister for.

slight thread de-rail….
how does that work, you don’t need a driving license to hire one of these things do you?

That’s all in page one of the thread. An illegal e scooter is not a bicycle and falls under laws for motor vehicles

Lol.

Best solution seems to be the one she has now. Some a deal with a taxi driver.

Surely its the same as cycling drunk,

I don't think so. If (not sure, but I think this is the case as that would be why they are illegal on the road) these things count as vehicles for the purposes of being on the road, then they are in the same category as mopeds etc. and so drink driving rules apply. I wonder what applies to ebikes? I had better look that up before taking my ebike on the pub ride. When I get round to getting an ebike, which looks even farther off having considered this issue.

So if you are drunk on one, stick to the pavement, which may not count for that purpose (dunno the answer to that one either). I may or may not get rond to looking all this up proper.

"how does that work, you don’t need a driving license to hire one of these things do you?
Surely its the same as cycling drunk, you can’t be done for DD but you can be done for various other offences, none of which are endorsable on your (if you have one) License"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-58661601

"A man has been banned from the roads for riding an e-scooter while more than three times the legal alcohol limit."

OP: If your daughter doesn't have a problem with having a scooter seized, getting points and/or a driving ban and a hefty fine then go with the scooter. I've seen plenty of people riding them, but I've also seen someone looking glum while their e-scooter is loaded into the boot of a police car. I think they should be legal but for now they're not, so a bike ridden considerately on the pavement is probably the best option if the points/fine are a problem. You risk a telling off and small fine but it's very unlikely, and the bike won't be seized, and she won't get any points. If she doesn't want to ride a bike then you're left with a non-e scooter or rollerblades. Or the e-scooter but with the risk of some quite serious repercussions.

You might not like that, but it's the way the law works at the moment so you can't get annoyed at other posters for telling you that.

There not all slow

You see loads in Spain but the Spanish seem much more tolerant of each others choice of transport,in the cities I've visited the infrastructure for cycling/scooter riding is way better than the UK

" So if you are drunk on one, stick to the pavement, which may not count for that purpose"

It makes no difference, like drink driving in a car but taking to pavement rather than the road.

As it stands today the privately owned e-scooter is the transportation solution of choice for rampant chav scum round our way. I don't believe there's a rental scheme running locally (or at least not a successful one).

I do think there's been a trick missed in terms of legalising them with appropriate rules on safety features, construction standards and operation, funnily enough bicycles/e-bikes are the basic template...

But anyway the pragmatic answer has already been given I think, if she's sensible enough to use lights, avoid riskier situations (note: on an A-road?) and accept the potential for legal issues (mostly unenforced at present) then yeah, she could use one for a while, but is it really a good long term solution for the journey you described OP?
You know, depths of winter with ice about etc? Is Dad still going to get called up and asked for a lift home?

I’m with Cougar on this one. E bike ridden sensibly on pavement where required.

I don't think I mentioned an e-bike?

Riding a bike is illegal on the pavement. Riding a non-rental e-scooter is illegal on both the pavement and the roads. Whether policing of either of these infractions would happen in actuality (which is what the OP is asking, can she wilfully break the law on a twice-daily basis and get away with it?) I can only guess, but probably not. That said, if she's commuting at the same times every day then she's predictable and is someone were to take umbrage and report her...

I get that she doesn't want to ride a bike, even in shouty capitals, but she doesn't want to walk either, doesn't want a taxi and the parental unit(s) are seemingly bored of giving her a lift. So we appear to be at something at an impasse unless she picks which one of those she doesn't want to do the least. Back when I used to commute from East Lancs to Warrington I didn't particularly want to spend two hours of my day on the M6 but I didn't have a vast amount of choice in the matter.

The other options would be to learn to drive, or CBT + moped / 125 as suggested earlier. At least here if she mows down a granny she'll be insured.

Back to the OP, you mention a bit near the M25. If this is in the Surrey section you might want to be careful, I see Surrey police pulling people on EScooters over quite a bit. Seems they've been told to crack down on them

I do think there’s been a trick missed in terms of legalising them with appropriate rules on safety features, construction standards and operation, funnily enough bicycles/e-bikes are the basic template…

It's a complete farse. The fact they are illegal is completely irrelevant, you have Halfords etc selling 10,000s every year to people who are only going to ride them on the roads / pavements.

The police don't have the man power to do anything about it other than the occasional blitz where they stop 0.00001% of users and confiscate a few scooters (which you can then claim back later).

They may as well just legalise it and try and encourage good behaviour (obs some will always ignore it as with car drivers and red light jumping / speeding etc).

How about a mobility scooter? They seem completely acceptable on pavement or road, she could even take a shortcut through the shopping centre?

They are pretty nippy too!

In Liverpool, you can use public ones but they're speed limited and you must now park them in specific zones, which defeats the purpose. You can rip around in a Range Rover as fast as you can and leave it anywhere you want, however.

The trial rental scooters in Cambridge are 15 mph on roads, no slower than a bike. They’re pretty nippy as well.

They're 10mph in Cambridge, aren't they? They were supposed to up the limit to 25km/h, but I don't think that has happened yet judging from what I've seen recently. They are very much slower than cycling, and pretty unpleasant in places without segregated cycling infrastructure like Mill Road and on the many rat run parked car slaloms.

If the scooter is seized you cannot get it back a to do so you have to have the correct license and insurance - and you cannot get insurance for a motor vehicle that does not meet regs

so once its seized its gone for good

Think they’re brilliant – definitely a big part of the future of local transport.

Maybe. We have one of the hire operators in Birmingham and they seem to get plenty of use, but I can't help thinking they are mainly replacing walking or getting the bus, not driving. If that's the case their positive impact is a bit blunted I think.

You are. Agressive quoting and not really reading the OP doesn’t help.

thanks Ads - as OP I thought I was going nuts!

The legal rental scheme scooters are to have number plates soon, so that the illegal private ones can be more easily identified.

https://www.micromobilitybiz.com/all-trial-e-scooters-will-have-to-display-number-plates-from-april/

I’d paint it up to look like one from a local scheme
The Police won’t take a second look 😀

+1

The legal rental scheme scooters are to have number plates soon, so that the illegal private ones can be more easily identified.

They all have had for nearly 2 years now!

The trial schemes started just before the Pandameic IIRC.

They all have little number plates on the front, side and rear:

[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50828100721_046759a920.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50828100721_046759a920.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/2krviwa ]Voi Scooters, Cambridge[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Although it's a moot point as for every legal trial one there are 10 illegal ones which no one is in the slightest bit bothered about (other than poss the Daily Mail).

Not sure it's any help to the OP but here in Milton Keynes we have the perfect infrastructure for scooters and I'd be very surprised if the police bothered to undertake any sort of clamp down. We have a massive network of (redways) cycle and pedestrian off road paths that follow pretty much every road and run through every estate to the extent that I see e-scooters all the time with no real issues. You can go absolutely anywhere in MK without needing the road or dedicated footpath. It would be a crime if they got all policy over scooter here.