E-scooter boss says speed limit for cars should be cut to 20mph to protect riders

Speed limits across major UK cities should be slashed to 20mph to protect the growing horde of e-scooter riders clogging up roads from serious accidents, a rental company boss has demanded.

Wayne Ting, chief executive of Lime, the world's largest escooter and e-bike hire firm, has called on transport bosses to rollout speed restrictions, insisting it is the best way to protect riders from being killed or seriously hurt on the roads

His plea comes after the number of deaths from escooter accidents tripled in a year, while crashes also ballooned by 28 per cent over the same period.

Mr Ting has insisted those renting his two-wheeled vehicles were not to blame, despite a damning study which branded e-scooter riders more reckless than cyclists, being five times more likely to drink-drive and 30 times to travel helmetless

While a further analysis by the Department for Transport found scooter users were about three times more likely to get hurt compared to cyclists - with 13 'casualties' every million miles

But Mr Ting, a former Uber executive and Obama adviser told the Daily Telegraph: 'We know how to make riders safer and it is not by blaming modes of transport that are not creating serious accidents

'We know how to improve safety, you slow down cars in London, where they slowed the average car to 20 [miles per hour] they saw accidents go down

'One accident is too many,' he adds, 'but some people say we should ban scooters or ebikes - imagine if a person gets hit by a car and people say we should ban walking?'

The use of e-scooters has exploded in recent years, with more cities adopting rental schemes nationwide

But the growth in their popularity has triggered a safety debate, with the latest Government statistics revealing there were 12 deaths between June 2021 and 2022 involving e-scooters and 1,349 crashes

This compares to four deaths the year before as well as 978 crashes Some 11 of the 12 deaths were e-scooter users while one was a pedestrian

In December 12-year-old schoolboy Mustafa Madeem became the latest person to lose their life riding an escooter

The youngster was heading to school on the 15 5mph Voi machine when he collided with a bus in Birmingham

And in June, a 71-year-old grandmother became the first pedestrian to be killed by an escooter in the UK when she was hit by a 14-year-old rider

Linda Davis was struck on the pavement in Rainworth, Nottinghamshire, on June 2 She was rushed to hospital but died six days later

Courtesy of The Evening Standard

*In our opinion at The LCDC, we believe that these e-scooters should never have been licensed in the first place

They’re a major nuisance to road users and the public alike

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