Hire e-scooters could soon be banned from Melbourne's CBD, with the council looking to rip up its contracts with providers.
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00:00A convenient way to get around, or a bane on public walkways, share-hire e-scooters
00:07have been contentious ever since they were introduced.
00:10I think they're a very sustainable way to get around.
00:12They're too fast.
00:13Too fast for footpaths.
00:14Get them off the footpaths.
00:15I think they bring a great liveliness to the city, actually.
00:19Three weeks ago, Lord Mayor Nicholas Rees stood alongside the state government as it
00:23made share-hire e-scooters permanent after a two-year trial.
00:27That's three million less car trips around our city.
00:30Today he's hissing the brakes, calling for contracts with e-scooter companies Lime and
00:35Neuron to be cancelled just two months out from the mayoral elections.
00:39I did begin as a supporter of the e-scooters when they first started, but there's too much
00:44rule-breaking going on, people riding on footpaths, not wearing helmets, double-dinking, and probably
00:49most significantly, just parked and scattered everywhere around the city, creating a tripping
00:54hazard.
00:55People are getting knocked over because the people who ride those scooters don't take
01:00care.
01:01Improving e-scooter safety has been a long-running challenge for authorities.
01:05In two and a half years, police have issued almost 2,000 e-scooter infringements, mostly
01:10for riders failing to wear a helmet.
01:13There have also been 860 collisions and seven deaths, three of which have been since April
01:18this year.
01:19We, on average, see 30 to 40 injuries per month.
01:24Some of these injuries are life-changing injuries.
01:26They can be injuries that people don't really ever recover from.
01:30In a statement, Neuron appeared to be blindsided by the news, while Lime said riders would
01:35turn to unregulated, privately-owned scooters without geofencing, slow zones and helmets.
01:41The contracts with Lime and Neuron were set to expire next April.
01:45The early scrapping of those agreements could spark a major legal battle, with the companies
01:49having spent millions to set up their operations in Melbourne.
01:53Mr Rees needs to guarantee that not a single ratepayer dollar will be going to these e-scooter
01:58companies in compensation for this failure of leadership.
02:01Ballarat City Council and Port Phillip Council say they have no current plans to dump e-scooters.