Cambridgeshire Police have seized more than 450 e-scooters in a single year.

Listen to this article

Four hundred and fifty. Which raises the question – at what point does a new transport trend become a public policy failure?

The law is not especially complicated: you cannot ride private e-scooters on public roads, cycle paths or pavements. Yet, they are everywhere. They appear in city centres, on pavements, through pedestrian precincts, outside stations, in parks, and, with grim inevitability, in the path of people who expect to walk down the street without being clipped by a silent, battery-powered vehicle.

This would be absurd enough if everyone understood the rules – but they clearly do not. And why would they, when private e-scooters are being sold and advertised as just........

© LBC