Amnesty for illegal e-scooters & e-bikes would make our roads safer – Farrell

An amnesty period for the handover of illegal e-scooters and e-bikes would help to make our roads safer, a Fine Gael TD has said. Deputy Alan Farrell, who represents Dublin Fingal, called for the introduction of an incentive scheme.

Deputy Farrell said, “The Road Traffic and Roads Bill 2021 commencing Second Stage in the Dáil today, will regularise e-scooters and e-bikes to make our roads safer. I am delighted to see this legislation coming from Government, building on my previous Private Members Bill on the subject.

“With the regularisation of these devices, we will need to tackle the existing illegal devices on our roads. The legislation assumes devices holding a speed gained through pedalling up to 25kph.  However the roads are currently full of e-scooters that can well exceed 25kph and there are also a great number of e-bikes in use on our roads that can start from zero and accelerate to speed far in excess of 25kph.

“I believe a scheme incentivising people to trade in their e-scooter or e-bike and get credit in return on a shared scheme, or credit toward a new legal version of the scooter or bike would really help to keep our roads safe.

“Both e-bikes and e-scooters have grown hugely in popularity here in recent years. While it is really positive that the future sale of these devices will be governed by this safety legislation, we cannot ignore the fact that there are many devices already in use on our roads. It is extremely difficult for the Gardaí to police the technical capabilities of each device, so it is important we take steps to remove from our roads any devices that do not comply with the new legislation.”