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news
Near Miss of the Day 753: Wrong-way e-scooter rider cuts across cyclist
A cyclist in south west London who was riding slowly around the back of an ambulance in south west London got a bit of a shock to find an e-scooter rider coming the wrong way down a one-way street cutting across her path then heading through a No Entry sign.
The incident happened last Friday 15 April at the junction of Cowleaze Road and the A307 in Kingston-upon-Thames in south west London.
The footage was shot by road.cc reader jaysa, who told us: “I’m dawdling up a bus lane expecting to sync with the lights ahead changing to green.
“A private ambulance is stationary across the bus lane, so I creep behind him super slow as I can’t see past … and encounter a scooter on the wrong side of the road, riding too fast for his visibility, turning through the No Entry sign and on the wrong side of the emerging car.
“I came to a halt a foot away from him ... luckily I was creeping round the back of the van as I couldn't see far. But definitely didn't expect that!
“I'm all for scooters but not when ridden by Herberts,” jaysa added.
As the law currently stands, it is illegal to use privately-owned e-scooters on public roads, and police regularly confiscate them, with riders potentially facing charges including driving a motor vehicle with no insurance.
With approval from the Department for Transport, some London boroughs – but not Kingston-upon-Thames – are participating in a scheme under which e-scooters may be hired, provided the user fulfils several criteria including being aged 18 or over and having a full or provisional driving licence.
Three rental firms – Dott, Lime and Tier – are involved in the trial which began in July 2021, but the one in the video does not appear to belong to any of those companies.
> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?
Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.
If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Well done to Paddy....
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How long before some waste of DNA complains about them on the footpath ... or for Grimsby [and the other shit-tips] to ban them ...
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Seems probably even more appropriate than what I originally intended.
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20 comments
The cyclist was lucky to avoid a collision. Cautious riding saved a spill there. Too many e-scooter riders goo too fast and without sufficient care.
I was nearly taken out by one on the way back from a training session a while back. The e-scooter rider over took a car on his side of the road and then cut to my side of the road to avoid a white van in the process of overtaking me, resulting in me and the e-scooter rider nearly hitting each other head on. The van driver pulled over asked if I was ok after at least.
Cyclists complaining there are people who have even less respect for traffic laws than them?!
Motorists trolling cycling websites?
Cyclist and pedestrian who's fed up with near misses from other cyclists who jump lights, cut corners, and ride the wrong way up the cycle paths clearly labelled with direction arrows.
Bingo!
The Bike Snob also says "don't be an a jerk to other vulnerable road users" and I'd agree. However he's careful to avoid the false equivalence between rule breaking by cyclists and those doing almost all of the killing and maiming.
He didn't even find a relevant thread to post the comments to fill his Bingo card.
Ambulance is at fault.
I'd say that the ambulance wasn't best positioned and was creating a hazard, but as it wasn't moving it was not causing any direct danger. The e-scooterist was the one causing a problem by being in the wrong place and travelling the wrong way (not recommended). The cyclist was being careful due to the lack of visibility and avoided an incident.
There was also space to pass in front of the ambulance, but the lights could have changed, and the driver would be looking toward them and possibly move forward without seeing me.
Behind the ambulance seemed the best bet - fortunately I'd slowed as my view was completely blocked. You can see how surprised I was by my delay in restarting!
Did some driving lessons with a Police Class 1 driver years ago who was big on limit point driving - glad some of it stuck ...
These e scooters are a menace for everyone. Should be banned totally or registered and insured.
Well I was overhauled (not hard...) only a couple of nights back while deffo doing more than 16mph. So there was a scofflaw. Scooterists are surprising and sometimes not welcome.
However I'm with the bikesnob on this one - they're not the horsepersons of the apocalypse. Should the authorities have got their act together on this one? Yes. It's not just failing to react fast enough. As very frequent in the UK we didn't make a choice so we made a choice. So having let this come about they should roll out the protected infra! Think of the children! Potholes are bad for cars, terrible for cyclists but catastrophic for the scooterists. So take them off the roads and footpaths (those kerbs...). What these folks need is smooth asphalt. Preferably in the UK standard colour because of course we've chosen one for street legibility... Which incidentally would be great for cyclists too.
Maybe scooters - popular, likely to quickly overtake cyclist numbers because people love not having to walk or cycle and children can't drive - can be the gateway to proper non-(heavy)-motor vehicle infra?
Cyclists should also have third party insurance
Don't you mean all road users?
I hope you have third party liability insurance for anything you or your household may do.
I think he knew exactly what he meant.
I wonder what his username used to be?
Yes, although normally we refer to them as motorists, if we're being tribal about it; and we'd use some evidence to demonstrate it rather than just using some lazy stereotyping from ABD
toilet paperpress releases."should" suggests that there is somewhere some approved guidance that advises it, lime the Highway Code. It doesn't. However, there is a legal requirement in the Road Traffic Act for third party insurance, yet around 1 in 7 motorists is uninsured.
Meanwhile, most household insurance companies include 3rd party cover for cyclists as part of the policy; any member of CyclingUK, British Cycling and often affiliated clubs will have similar or greater cover (usually many times the minimum cover for damage to 3rd party property required of motorists).
Elephants shouldn't be allowed on the Underground. Sorry, I thought we were playing who can make the most irrelevant comment in relation to the subject of the article.
The E Scooter riders are a bloody menace round my way. I did, however have a great laugh the other week. As I was coming home in the car, I indicated to pull across the road so I could reverse into my drive. A youth on an E Scooter screamed past my drive on the pavement at warp speed, narrowly missing me. 50 yards down the pavement and he hit a grid and cartwheeled down the pavement, and spent the next five minutes sitting there rubbing his arms, legs, ankles etc. I did consider walking down to see how he was, but would probably have pissed myself and told him it was his own fault for riding like a dickhead. He got up and disappeared, so was obviously OK. He did, however, almost face plant the rear of a parked car, so it could have been much worse. He could have damaged the car.
Maybe escooters should be more like ebikes, and only provide assistance to your own effort. Might deter the hooligan element.
I remember reading an article which said that some cyclists act like "slower motorists" and some act like "faster pedestrians".
The cyclists who act like "faster pedestrians" are the ones who pop up in local news stories haring along (non-shared) footways, etc, because they don't think of themselves as a vehicle using the road (and subject to road laws) but as a pedestrian using an aid to allow them to travel faster.
In my own experience, so far, many e-scooterists are of the "faster pedestrian" school of thought*
*Just seen a trio of e-scooters salmoning their (wrong) way along the wand-protected cycle lane on Park Row... Luckily, no cyclists (or motorbikes, for that matter) coming the right way along that lane...
Some truth to that - although whisper it! Most people in the UK (and sadly lawmakers, planners and designers) think cyclists are exactly one of those two e.g. either slow cars or fast walkers. Missing that cyclists are not actually either they then make rules / design infrastructure inconvenient or unfit for use.
In your analogy you'd need to add "and while some pedestrians walk carefully around others, slow down at junctions and wait in lines others barge through rudely, some like to practice parkour and a few are just going about to be cool / cause offense and get a reaction. Mostly still better than being in cars / on motorbikes though".