Concerns about injuries and dangerous behaviour prompted Melbourne to join cities like Paris, Rome, and Toronto in banning or winding back their e-scooter networks earlier this month. In Canberra, almost four years after their introduction, police say that while most people are doing the right thing, some rider behaviour is both illegal and unsafe.
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00:00Four years and four million rides.
00:05Woohoo!
00:06I think the scooters are great for the public.
00:08It's good, it's handy.
00:09There's always a liquid amber at the end of the journey
00:12and they glide downstairs with a bit of gusto.
00:16Even years on, concerns about safety for riders and pedestrians remain.
00:20The problem is they're so quiet and they just appear from nowhere.
00:25Sometimes I've seen a bunch of kids with other helmets on,
00:29sometimes three kids on one scooter can sometimes look a little bit dangerous.
00:34One e-scooter fatality was recorded in the ACT in 2022.
00:39A young woman not wearing a helmet collided with a car
00:42while riding her privately owned e-scooter.
00:45But getting official data on injuries is impossible.
00:48Canberra's hospitals and walk-in centres don't code
00:51emergency department presentations by mechanism of injury.
00:55But police on the beat do hand out fines to riders who take passengers,
00:59use their phone or fail to wear a helmet.
01:02That sort of risky behaviour is something that is of concern to police,
01:06particularly given how vulnerable e-scooter riders are.
01:10Essentially they're not afforded the same protections as riders in other vehicles.
01:14But infringement numbers have fallen substantially in recent years.
01:18So far this year only 17 have been issued.
01:22That compares with 127 in 2021.
01:26Riding a scooter while under the influence of alcohol or drugs is also prohibited.
01:31But how often this happens is unclear
01:34because police don't distinguish between drink driving and drink riding.
01:38The ACT government says it will release more data about e-scooters
01:42and is funding research about rider behaviour in an effort to improve safety.
01:46It's also now investigating claims that BEAM has been deliberately exceeding its scooter cap
01:51and depriving the government of registration revenue here and in several other cities.
01:55BEAM has apologised and rejected the suggestion it had been running any kind of a scheme.