E-scooters – or death-skateboards, as I like to call them – are not a viable mode of transport

Forgive me if you are really into the idea of standing on a moving plank to get from A to B and I’m spoiling your fun, but it’s a bad idea

Wheels in motion: we might be seeing a lot more e-scooters on our streets in the coming months (Getty)

I first became aware of e-scooters, the mode of transport favoured by adults who like to believe they are still six years old, on a trip to Paris last year. They have trialled them there with some success. You can find one on an app, scoot to the sweet shop, then dump it in the middle of a pavement for a wheelchair user to later levitate over. We might be seeing a lot more of them over here after a push towards legalisation this week by the Transport Committee.

Us human beings are always looking for new, hellish ways to put ourselves in mortal danger. We strap ourselves to giant bits of material and jump out of planes for God’s sake. I have done this myself. I jumped out of a helicopter for a TV show. It’s not rational. We can’t be trusted with our own health and safety, so forgive me if you are really into the idea of standing on a moving plank to get from A to B and I’m spoiling your fun, but it’s a bad idea.

People are already taking to these scooters in the UK, despite it currently being illegal to use one on a public road, cycle lane or pavement. Just the other day, I saw a woman pootling on one on a busy main road, with all the stability of a puppy on the trapeze.

Don’t get me wrong, I know they are a greener way to travel and I honestly do hate the planet being on fire, if only for practical reasons: I have nowhere to move to. But can I ask what is wrong with bicycles? Why are they not enough? Why do we need an extra flimsy bit of kit to ride on alongside articulated lorries? And please don’t pretend this is a necessity for those who cannot ride bikes. If you can scoot, you can ride a bike and if you have a sore knee or sore bottom, we have a public transport system.

Committee chair Huw Merriman said this week: “E-scooters have the potential to become an exciting and ingenious way to navigate our streets.” Why are they “exciting”? I’ll tell you why, Because, just as with skydiving, your fragile existence will be in greater peril than if you took the bus. This is especially true in the UK, where there is precious little room on our roads as it is. A friend of mine from America marvelled at our narrow streets: “People park on either side of the road and it’s a two way street! How are you all still alive?”

Although there are laws against cycling on pavements, we have all seen people flout them. Whether it’s a nice middle-aged woman on a charming shopper with a wicker basket, or a snarling gang of teens doing wheelies on the highstreet, people are always ignoring the laws. They are impossible to implement every time. Why do we imagine scooter riders will be any more law abiding than the rest of us? They are not yet legal but people still use them. Why would they obey the “not on the pavement” rule? Once they are legal, won’t it just be a matter of time before an e-scooter crashes into an actual six-year-old scooting to school?  

As is the way with these things, they propose trialling the e-scooters in certain parts of the country to see how they go and what can be improved. Am I the only one who finds this sort of thing chilling? “We will trial them in Milton Keynes and if no one dies, we’ll expand out to Birmingham.”

As someone who regularly has to drive around London, especially the Hanger Lane gyratory system, I never want them to be the norm in this city. We are not dinky like Paris, plus we are full of Londoners. This very morning I was aggressively beeped at by a motorist because I was refusing to mow down the cyclist in front me on a narrow road, and let the chap behind get to where he was going... 37 seconds sooner.

I blame the popularity of children’s scooters for this move towards accepting these death-skateboards as a viable mode of transport. It’s the norm now to see toddlers who have barely mastered walking hurtling along the pavement far too fast, far too near the curb and far too far from their parent for my heart to stand.  

Throw the lot of these scooters in Room 101. My children never even asked for scooters. It’s the one thing on which they know I am unbending. They can tattoo their faces, join the circus, wear a MAGA hat, but they will never, ever scoot.