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Beryl Welcomes Government Move To Make E-Scooters Safer

The Isle of Wight's leading micro-mobility provider, Beryl, has welcomed the latest announcement on the future of e-scooter legislation.

The government said the Transport Bill, which was announced during this week’s Queen’s Speech, will help them take steps to make e-scooters safer and they will now consider how best to design future regulations.

While riding a privately owned e-scooter on public land is currently illegal, there are a number of Department for Transport sponsored trials.

These were sanctioned to help the DfT to better understand the benefits of properly regulated, safety-tested e-scooters and their impact on public space.

Beryl currently operates three of these trials in Bournemouth and Poole, Norwich and on the Isle of Wight.

Since the first scheme was launched in Norwich in September 2020, users have clocked up almost 647,000 journeys over 2,232,132 km across the three schemes. 

Currently e-scooters sold for private use are unregulated and can only be used legally on private land with the landowner’s permission.

But many of the one million plus private e-scooters sold to date in the UK are being used illegally on the public highway.

Beryl CEO and Co-Founder, Phil Ellis, said:

“We welcome any legislation that seeks to remove barriers to sustainable transport and encourage the take up of greener transport transport options, reducing road congestion while improving air quality and public health.

“The key is to ensure delivery in partnership with authorities and in consultation with communities and key stakeholders and we have a proven track record of doing this successfully.”

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