E-scooters allow me to feel safe on my commute. Why is the council taking that away?

There’s nothing easy about being a young nurse starting your career. It’s rewarding, and I love my job, but it is also challenging. So I appreciate anything that makes my life a little easier.

That’s why I’ve come to love e-scooters. They make me feel safe, they save me money, they’re fun, and they make me feel good about not driving my car everywhere. So when Melbourne City Council announced its plan to ban hire e-scooters on Monday with no warning, I was naturally shocked and disappointed.

Nurse Lucy Dahan uses e-scooters to commute.Credit: Joe Armao

I know some people don’t ride or park them as responsibly as I do, but a few bad apples shouldn’t result in them being taken away from the overwhelming majority of good riders like me.

Commuting from my home in Port Melbourne when I am working a night shift in the critical and intensive care unit can be intimidating and daunting. It can feel unsafe walking alone in the early hours of the morning or riding on near-empty public transport, hoping nothing goes wrong and that no untoward characters get on before you get off. Everyone in Melbourne has at least one story of a train, tram or bus ride from hell, where someone having a bad day gets on and makes everyone else feel unsafe. On an e-scooter, the worst that will happen is you’ll be forced to wait at a set of traffic lights next to someone for a minute or two.

Commuting on an e-scooter means I can avoid that feeling of having to look over my shoulder and tightly grip my keys when arriving or leaving a late shift.

It’s these types of journeys that often go overlooked by councillors and people who are frustrated at hire e-scooters being dumped in the streets or drunk riders behaving irresponsibly on a night out. But many people, especially women, know other commuting methods can, at times, be frightening at best and dangerous at worst.

Aside from the reassurance and safety, riding an e-scooter to work also reduces the financial burden of running a car and paying for parking, something we shouldn’t be getting rid of during a cost-of-living crisis. And instead of spending 40 minutes in the car or an hour on late-night transport, a scooter ride takes just 20 minutes.

But even more than that, they’re fun. After a long shift through the night, stepping outside into the morning light and being hit with fresh air as I ride home, while doing my part for the environment and not having to contend with mounting peak-hour traffic, is joyous.

Banning hire e-scooters is an impulsive knee-jerk reaction and an incorrect answer to the question of how to make commuting in Melbourne easier.

A ban is not a solution, it is at best a Band-Aid that will maybe quieten a vocal minority who complain often and loudly. It will only result in everyday Melburnians like myself punished for the actions of a few and unable to go about their daily lives without the safety and reliability of a green transport option.

If the council and Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece have concerns about safe riding and poor parking, then they should work with hire e-scooter companies and riders to address these issues. But don’t be irrational and make me suffer for it.

It’s reasonable that some people are fed up with seeing riders scare people on footpaths or dump a scooter like it’s rubbish on the ground. It’s also reasonable to give companies the chance to build upon improvements they’re already trialling like installing cameras on e-scooters and bolstering their safety messages to riders.

But I’d also like to be able to keep riding e-scooters to work while Melbourne City Council and the lord mayor work with the companies to work out a way to get things under control.

Shared e-scooters have made my commute easier, safer, more affordable, and better for the environment. To throw that away on a whim would be a huge step backwards for our city and everyone who’s lucky enough to call Melbourne home.

Lucy Dahan is an intensive and critical care nurse living in Melbourne.

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