E-Scooter Deaths Rose 67 Percent Last Year Even Though Riding One Remains Illegal

Ten people died last year in collisions involving e-scooters, up 67% on the year before, according to the Department for Transport’s own casualty figures. Almost none of those riders were using a legal machine.

Provisional statistics published by the DfT show 1,484 casualties in collisions involving e-scooters in 2025, up from 1,390 in 2024. Serious injuries rose from 428 to 485 and slight injuries from 956 to 989. The figures sit inside a wider road safety context where 29,911 people were killed or seriously injured on Great Britain’s roads last year, a rise of 4% on 2024, even as overall fatalities fell 3% to 1,556.

The law almost nobody follows

Privately owned e-scooters remain illegal to ride on any public road, pavement, cycle lane or park in Great Britain. The only lawful way to ride an e-scooter on public land is a government-approved rental scheme inside one of the local trial areas, which the Department for Transport has now extended to 31 May 2028 while it gathers evidence on safety, pedestrian impact and battery reliability before drafting permanent rules.

That leaves a wide gap between what the law allows and what actually happens on Britain’s streets. Retailers sell private e-scooters openly on the high street and online, with no requirement to warn a buyer that using the machine anywhere except private land is against the law. Many first-time buyers only learn of the restriction after a police officer stops them, by which point they could already have ridden the scooter to work and back for weeks.

Outside those trial zones, riding a privately bought e-scooter on a road or pavement carries the same legal risk as riding an uninsured, untaxed motor vehicle, as the Road Traffic Act 1988 classes an e-scooter as a motor vehicle in its own right. Riders can be fined, given penalty points and have the scooter seized, yet enforcement is patchy and millions of private e-scooters are sold and ridden every week regardless of the law standing in the way.

Why the casualty numbers keep climbing

Carly Brookfield, chief executive of the Driving Instructors Association, is among road safety figures calling for a formal review of e-scooter use, mandatory training before anyone rides one and a licensing system that would apply even while private use stays confined to hire schemes. She argues fines for riding a privately bought scooter on public roads should double where a rider cannot show proof of training or a licence, and that hire operators should refuse to rent to anyone who has not completed training.

The DfT’s data links much of the rise in casualties among “other vehicle occupants” directly to e-scooters, which have only been recorded separately in official statistics from 2020 onward. That short data history makes trend spotting difficult, but the direction is not in question. Motorcyclist deaths also rose 13% to 384 in 2025, the second consecutive annual increase, while pedal cyclist casualties climbed 10% to 16,027 and pedestrian casualties rose 4% to 19,972.

Every one of the four main road user groups tracked by the DfT saw casualty movement in 2025, but e-scooters stand out for the size of the percentage jump in deaths against such a small base number. A rider killed on an e-scooter is still, technically, riding a machine that had no lawful route onto the road they died on. Road safety campaigners point out that speeds on some private e-scooters exceed 30mph out of the box, well above the 15.5mph cap applied to government-approved rental machines, with no equivalent limit enforced on privately owned models.

What happens if you are hit by one

E-scooters count as motor vehicles under the Road Traffic Act, so a pedestrian or cyclist injured by a privately ridden e-scooter has the same legal standing as someone hit by an uninsured car. Private e-scooters cannot legally be insured for road use, as the vehicle itself is unlawful there in the first place, which leaves most riders both uninsured and, if they leave the scene, untraced.

That does not leave an injured pedestrian without options. Claims against an uninsured or untraced e-scooter rider can be pursued through the Motor Insurers’ Bureau, the body set up to compensate victims of drivers who have no insurance or who cannot be identified. Anyone injured this way should gather the rider’s details if possible, note the time, location and any witnesses, seek medical attention and report the collision to the police, as a police reference number strengthens any later MIB claim considerably. Solicitors who handle these claims say the biggest single mistake victims make is not reporting the collision to the police at all, assuming there is little point chasing a rider who has already ridden off.

Compensation through the MIB route can take longer than a standard insurance claim, as the Bureau has to establish that the rider was truly uninsured or cannot be traced before a payout is agreed. Keeping photographs of any visible injuries, medical letters and receipts for related costs strengthens a claim considerably and speeds up the eventual settlement.

How other countries have handled the same problem

Britain is not the only country wrestling with unregulated e-scooters. France introduced a national licence requirement and mandatory insurance for e-scooter riders in 2019, with fines for riding without either. Several German cities cap speeds and restrict pavement use through local ordinances backed by police enforcement rather than relying on national legislation alone. The UK’s continued reliance on a patchwork of local rental trials, with no equivalent framework for privately owned machines, leaves enforcement inconsistent between neighbouring towns and cities.

What riders need to know before they buy one

A rider who buys a private e-scooter assuming it works like a bicycle is taking on more legal risk than the marketing suggests. Riding one anywhere except private land with the landowner’s permission risks prosecution, and causing injury or death while riding illegally can lead to charges equivalent to those brought against a driver of an uninsured, unlicensed car, including dangerous or careless driving charges in the most serious cases.

Anyone who wants to ride an e-scooter legally on a public road should check whether their area runs a government-approved rental trial, as only those hire schemes currently permit lawful use outside private land. Riders under those schemes must hold a provisional or full driving licence, and hire operators are expected to provide safety guidance before letting anyone take a scooter out. Until Parliament passes permanent legislation for privately owned machines, buying one for street use remains a purchase that puts the rider on the wrong side of the law from the first journey, whatever the box it came in promised.

Trading standards officers say the surge in private e-scooter ownership has outpaced any single enforcement campaign, and most forces now rely on confiscation drives at known hotspots rather than routine roadside checks. Until the law catches up, the safest assumption for any buyer is that a private e-scooter belongs on private land only, whatever the seller implies.

Sources:

• Department for Transport: Reported road casualties in Great Britain, provisional estimates 2025
• Driving Instructors Association: road casualty figures and e-scooter deaths
• Lyons Davidson: the legal lowdown on private e-scooters in the UK
• Motoring Chronicle: nine in ten Britons cannot tell if an e-bike is legal