E-scooters: 10 reasons why you SHOULDN'T buy one

2. They could hurt you 

While government-trial hire e-scooters are limited to 15.5mph (12.5mph in London), several models on the market can easily top 40mph or 50mph and one is said to be capable of 75mph. Clearly, this is risky, and not just because crash helmets are optional. A 2019 US study found that 45% of resultant injuries were to the head, 27% “upper extremity fractures” (ie broken arms). Coming off at any decent lick could easily make you an unwanted burden on the NHS.

There’s also the possibility the lithium ion battery could burst into flames. This has happened, hundreds of times, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, with many of these incidents available for compulsive viewing on YouTube and TikTok.

3. They (ie you) could hurt someone else

Although not the only quiet mode of transport – cyclists can reach a fair speed without much aural warning – e-scooters have a rarity value that often surprises pedestrians, including road-crossers, many of whom have consequently found themselves mown down.

At worst, this has led to tragedy. At best, this is still suboptimal if they happen to have fists like hams, or are a lawyer who can transmit that anger into action. Hire scooters have in-built public liability insurance; your private model doesn’t. 

Some e-scooters are also somewhat lacking in the boring but important areas of visibility, headlights, indicators and horns – useful for alerting and avoiding others. 

4. You look a bit of a wally

Not in your current sartorial choices (a little bold, perhaps, but don’t ever let anybody stop you being you). No, there’s no escaping the fact that, just as with early adopters of the bicycle, mobile phone and Sinclair C5, those who clamber aboard an e-scooter must risk hoots of derision from bystanders cloaking their fear and envy in vocal antipathy.

On this, your correspondent writes from personal experience, having wazzocked around the streets of London on an e-scooter for a Move Electric feature. True, perhaps it was the hi-viz jacket or the sk8ter-boi helmet, but members of the public seemed overly interested and amused. It’s not for the shy or easily disheartened. 

5. They’re for kids, right? 

Motorised scooters have been around for a century – the Smithsonian Museum cites the 1915 Autoped as “the true ancestor of the modern motor scooter” – and have always been aimed at grown-ups. However, it cannot be denied that their powerless push-along peers have found a much wider user-base among the under-aged. 

It should also be noted that children tend to come in two flavours: those of primary age, generally regarded as cherubic; and those of secondary school age, commonly seen as demonic. Because of this dichotomy, adults spotted on scooters will be presumed to be either simpletons or members of a county lines gang. 

6. They’re not very secure

Fear not, they won’t leak your financial details onto the dark web. The problem with scooters is that their basic shape doesn’t offer an easy route to locking them up. Unlike with bikes, there’s no frame presenting a thief-proof way to attach chassis to road furniture, and you can’t get a decently girthed chain through the wheel. 

Sadly, what is not very lockable is therefore nickable, and your chariot is thus all the more attractive for the Fagins de nos jours. Furthermore, most e-scooters don’t have lockable ignition, the more typical starter-button mechanism allowing the chancers to cackle off into the moonlight. And even if they can’t start it, they might be tempted to chuck it in the river.   

7. They’re not the best workhorses

Like the horses that came before them, bicycles can help you carry large loads: panniers on either side, mimicking cowboys’ saddle bags, will distribute the weight evenly enough for the bike to deal reasonably well with the wobbles, even after a supermarket sweep. 

Scooters offer no such logistical assistance. You could fill a backpack or, more precariously, a rucksack, but the resulting balancing act may not be endorsed by your physician or insurance provider. Just as e-scooters aren’t built for the long commute, they’re also unsuited to the heavy lifting. 

8. They might not be all that green

There’s no doubt we have to clean up our act, and moving over our motive power from fossil fuels to electricity is a big part of that. But is your e-scooter actually that green? 

True, you won’t be pouring petrol into it. (Please don’t.) But the electricity that recharges its batteries doesn’t fall out of the sky: how much do you know about how renewable your energy supply is? And what is that battery made of? Usually, it’s a lithium ion battery stuffed with rare metals dug out of the ground in South America and transported – not by fairies or goodwill, but by dirty fuel – to China, the US or Europe.