‘E-scooter carnage must stop’ says UK road safety charity as deaths rise 900% in 12 months

The UK’s largest independent road safety charity, IAM RoadSmart, is urging the Government to do much more to drive down the number of death and injuries on Britain’s roads.

This comes in the wake of the Department for Transport’s (DfT) latest findings in Reported Road casualties Great Britain, annual report: 2021 which revealed that there were 1,434 casualties involving e-scooters, of which 10 people were killed, 421 were seriously injured and 1,003 were slightly injured.

This is in stark contrast to the DfT’s 2020 statistics, which recorded 484 casualties involving e-scooters, including one death, 128 serious injuries and 355 slight injuries. Shockingly, this means there has been a 900 per cent increase in deaths in just 12 months.

Neil Greig, Director of Policy and Research at IAM RoadSmart, said: “The e-scooter carnage must stop. A tenfold increase in deaths related to e-scooters in just one year is utterly unacceptable and the continued delay in regulating these machines is costing lives and causing misery on our city roads every day.

“IAM RoadSmart calls on the new Transport Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, to make road safety the number one deliverable for her department in the coming months by introducing the long-awaited Transport Bill to regulate e-scooters for the first time.”

The report also revealed that although there was an 11% decrease in casualties in 2021 compared to 2019, overall road casualties have returned to the stagnation trend of the past decade after a sharp decrease in casualties in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Neil added: “The latest crash statistics make for depressing reading and the DfT now needs to show leadership in road safety and publish its long-awaited strategy for England and the Road Policing Review. Once we have a clear government vision for road safety, we can all start working together to deliver it and keep Britain’s roads as safe as they can possibly be.”