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Notts Police and Crime Commissioner to clamp down on illegal e-scooters

By Lauren Monaghan, Junior Local Democracy Reporter

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Nottinghamshire’s police boss is planning to crack down on illegal electric scooter use amid concerns for public and rider safety.

The growing concerns about electric vehicles were raised in the Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Panel meeting on Monday (July 28).

Newark and Sherwood District Councillor Paul Taylor (Lab) spoke of the “challenge” in stopping people who use e-scooters illegally to Nottinghamshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Gary Godden.

He said: “There’s a challenge to stop offending by people on electric scooters, where it’s not become common place, you can ride around on them even though they’re illegal because they’re difficult to stop.”

He asked Mr Godden if his office could look into e-scooter usage as an ‘urgent’ issue, adding: “People can get killed”.

Mr Godden said his office is planning a campaign on the legality of the electric vehicles to purposely launch around a Christmas period.

He said: “Some of the work that’s going to be done is working with local colleges to explore technological solutions on how we can encourage disuse of these scooters.

“There’s also going to be use of SmartWater to identify scooters, but not the individuals, try and look at that on scooters that are causing lots of disturbances and difficulties within local areas… finding out if it’s the same scooter in use, take it, get rid of it.”

But usage for e-vehicles has been on the rise in recent years. A parliamentary motion in 2022 noted an estimation of 750,000 private e-scooters being in use in the UK – with the majority being used illegally.

But more recent data from a government survey estimates there are over 1.2 million illegally in use.

It remains illegal to ride the devices on any public road – except in certain restricted trial areas – such as the one in place in Nottingham city where only those run by operator Dott can be ridden legally.

E-scooter casualty statistics from the government’s website did show a decline between 2022 and 2023 for Great Britain.

In 2022, there were 1,411 collisions involving e-scooters, but this dropped to 1,292 in 2023.

There were 1,502 casualties involving e-scooters in 2022, but this dropped to 1,387 in 2023. Similarly, there were 12 people killed in e-scooter collisions in 2022, whereas this dropped to six in 2023.

E-bike usage has boomed in recent years, with figures from Statista showing one in ten new bicycles sold in the UK in 2024 are e-bikes – in 2015 this was fewer than one in 100. The same data suggests by 2029 more than every fifth bike sold is expected to be an electric bike.

Mr Godden added a future campaign would look at training police officers in tactical contact – the deliberate use of a police vehicle to make contact with a suspect vehicle to safely end a pursuit – stopping and seizing efforts and fire safety.

He proposed a potential operation for fast-food delivery riders, saying: “Some of them are logging on to being [a delivery driver] and riders, but they’re not, they’re using the scooters to ship other things around.”

Mr Godden could not give a specific launch date of the future campaign, but mentioned it being beneficial around the Christmas period as a lot of e-scooter gifts are bought from abroad.

He added: “If they don’t have tax, insurance and MOT, they’re illegal.”

Similar concerns were highlighted earlier in July in Broxtowe, where Broxtowe Borough Council accepted a motion calling on the authority’s chief executive to write to the East Midlands’ Mayor, Nottinghamshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Broxtowe MPs and the Secretary of State for Transport to raise safety issues for e-bikes and e-scooters and change the vehicles’ safety checks.

It called for new licences and training be introduced for people who use these electric vehicles.