Because e-scooters are considered ‘powered transporters’, privately owned scooters have to meet the same requirements as motor vehicles to use them on public roads, which means insurance, licence, and tax, as well as indicators and rear lights.
An electric scooter could technically be used in public if you could register it, insure it, and tax it like any other motor vehicle. This isn’t currently possible though.
Eleanor Chappell, the Head of E-scooter Policy and Micromobility at UK Department for Transport (DfT), has said:
"For private machines, unless they meet the requirements for motor vehicles – so you've got a motorcycle helmet on, you've got insurance, which is hard to get, and they meet the motor vehicle requirements – it is still illegal to use an e-scooter on public roads, and the police will continue to enforce it that way."
Let’s talk about the exception to these rules: the government’se-scooter trials…
