Calls mount for ban on escooters and bikes on shared paths

They’re everywhere in our cities, but it seems that most people want this popular item banned from shared pathways. What do you think? Vote in our poll.

Three in every four people think electric scooters and bikes should be banned from pathways, despite a report showing they were not at fault for most accidents.

On Wednesday this masthead revealed how a council study put the blame for most accidents on shared paths on pedestrian inattention.

On the Gold Coast, which has more than 50km of shared pathways, riders of scooters and bikes were found to have been responsible for accidents requiring hospitalisation only twice in five years.

However the study cut little ice with locals, who have been demanding the devices are banned

from busy paths.

“Victim blaming at its finest. So pedestrians amble on a pedestrian pathway, as they have done for decades and decades and more, but because new electric scooters are now flying along at five to even sometimes ten times walking pace in the same space, it’s somehow the pedestrian’s fault if they accidentally step across the path of the scooter or fail to see it coming when crossing the space,” one person wrote.

“E scooters are a pox on the city, a cancer on our shared pathways and should be banned.”

A woman riding through Darwin on an e-scooter. Picture: Julianne Osborne.

Other people complained that scooters were being ridden at “massive speed”, causing hazards for pedestrians and riders alike.

“What a ridiculous report. In my district in the Moreton Bay region, there are no purpose built shared pathways. Pedestrians have to walk on narrow footpaths built decades ago. And many of them are in poor condition,” a reader said.

“E-scooters and other similar vehicles shoot along pathways in my area at massive speed and never slow down when they near a pedestrian. The worst situations are blind spots when cars are leaving premises like a service station or a local shop. But this report has revealed that it’s all the fault of pedestrians. Whew! That’s alright then.”

In a poll of readers by this masthead, 74 per cent agreed that electric scooters and bikes were a hazard for pedestrians on shared pathways and should be banned.

However a minority did argue that the problem was overblown.

“I remember the exact same thing was said about pushbikes and BMX’s back in the day, that people more often than not the youth at the time racing down paths and roads,” one woman said.

“Occasionally skateboards, kick scooters or rollerblades were lumped into the reckless groups taking over the paths too.

“Now it has moved on to the current fad of wheeled transport, electric scooters and bikes. I hate to be that person but it feels like the saying of the old folk are complaining about the young ones again.”

SURPRISING FINDINGS IN COUNCIL REPORT

We’ve all seen them, right? The electric scooters and bikes riders whizzing along shared paths.

It sometimes takes the breath away a little, and a lot of people are not happy about it.

If there’s one thing councillors are used to hearing, it’s complaints about users of two-wheeled transport on pathways.

Many people want the electric scooters and bikes banned completely.

Some people think such a ban has already happened. On a visit to a Gold Coast suburb last week for a somewhat tongue in cheek story about a council sign on a shared pathway there, this masthead asked locals what they thought it meant.

Despite the fact the sign clearly indicated otherwise, one lady said she believed it was to tell those blasted scooter riders they were not welcome.

The reality is, there is not too much council can do about the matter, even if they were minded to. Queensland state legislation over which councillors have no control allows the devices on shared pathways.

A council sign on a shared pathway at Paradise Point in the Gold Coast that caused some bemusement among locals.. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

But even if we could, should escooters really be banned from paths?

We may think they’re a serious problem, but there is evidence to suggest otherwise.

Council last year did a study into pathway safety. CCTV camera footage at twelve locations on the Gold Coast was analysed to determine the key contributing factors to pathway conflicts

Its findings, released at the end of October, were not what many people might expect.

Instead of electric bike and scooter riders being the problem, the study authors found the big issue was with pedestrians.

“Approximately 420 observed contributing factors (crashes, near misses, falls and hazardous

behaviour) were reviewed and the results of this analysis identified that around 60 per cent of

the observed contributing factors could be attributed to pedestrian inattention,” the report stated.

Those findings were at odds with what people tended to complain about, which the study also analysed.

Speed was by far the most complained about issue, followed by “lack of enforcement”.

“The majority of complaints relate to ‘accidents waiting to happen’ rather than accounts of actual collisions,” the report stated.

The shared footpath at Narrowneck on the Gold Coast. Picture: Tertius Pickard.

The report revealed another key statistic that suggested escooters and bikes on our shared pathways are not quite the problem many people imagine.

In the five years from 1 January 2016 to December 31 2020, there were only two crashes on city pathways bad enough that someone needed to be taken to hospital. Only two.

Such a statistic suggests that electric bikes and scooters on shared pathways are not quite the risk to safety many people fear.

It’s a different story on roads – Queensland Ambulance Service paramedics are seeing injuries to escooter riders every day on the state’s roads, including many here in Queensland.

On pathways, however, while escooters and bikes are an irritant for many, there is no real evidence that they are doing serious harm.

In fact, in terms of avoiding accidents and physical injury, it may be the best place for them.

They may also, in many ways, be helping keep cities moving – if electric bikes and scooters were indeed banned from shared pathways, that would quite obviously force some young people back onto the roads in their cars.

That’s unlikely to do a lot for our road congestion issues. And our roads are where the most serious accidents are happening.

The truth is, shared paths are like our city as a whole. We all do better if we look out for each other.

If we all could just have real consideration for the needs of others and leave the cranky pants at home then we should not have a problem, no matter how we are using our shared paths.

Follow @keithjwoods

Originally published as Calls mount for ban on escooters and bikes on shared paths