Death By E-Scooter Hurtles Towards RBKC

July 19, 2021

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THE WIRE Dangerous Deathtraps E-Scooters Gadgets Transport

As a 16-year-old dies after being hit on an e-scooter at 1.20am, inept Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council shamefully big up the arrival of a rental scheme for them in the borough

Whilst we illustrated the dangers of them when we shared a video clip of an e-scooter exploding earlier this month, this morning the MailOnline reported that a teenager was killed on one at 1.20am on Sunday morning.

Whilst the 16-year-old boy’s family deserve condolences from us all after the 20-year-old drunk driver – who has since been arrested – disgracefully fled the scene of the hit-and-run in Southborough Lane, Bromley, one has to ask: “What was a child doing roaming the roads on one of these dangerous devices in the dark at 1.20am in the first place?”

Elsewhere this weekend, the inept council that is the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea delivered a no doubt very costly, full-colour 8-page leaflet to residents. In it, they banged on about how “Kensington and Chelsea has become of the first boroughs in London where you can rent, ride and park e-scooters.”

Shamelessly saluting operators Lime, Dott and TIER, the unnamed author of the article about these mobile deathtraps claimed “safety will be at the core of the trial with scooters only allowed on roads and cycleways, not pavements.”

When The Steeple Times contacted RBKC’s environmental health team for their thoughts on Sunday’s death and whether this would affect their trial of such devices this morning, a hapless worker pathetically replied: “It’s above my pay grade to comment. I don’t know who I could put you through to I’m afraid.”

Twickenham accident — Last week in Twickenham, a 53-year-old man was left “shaking on the ground” in a “life-threatening” condition after falling off an e-scooter. ‘My London’ reported: “[He] was treated at the scene and taken to a major trauma centre as a priority.” Of the incident, a shop owner, Ibrahim Bozkurt, told the ‘Evening Standard’: “I have never seen anything like it… He was lying on the floor in shock, shaking, with his head covered in blood… Electric scooters are so dangerous. I don’t know how but there was zero damage to the car.”

RBKC article — The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea council are well-known for wasting money on glossy ‘Our Borough’ magazines at the expense of actually helping residents. In the latest edition of their frankly tedious ‘rag’ they reported on e-scooter rental schemes coming to the area and previously in a 16-page edition, they banged on about a survey that had just a 0.32% response rate. Laughably, when contacted by ‘The Steeple Times’ at the time in July 2020, a representative from their media department laughably remarked: “The magazine goes to 92,000 households, but I’ve no idea what it costs to produce and I don’t know who I could ask who would know.”

E-scooters, unless rented in areas where trials have begun, remain illegal on both pavements and roads. Privately owned examples of these deathtrap devices, at present, can only be used on private land in the United Kingdom.

In January 2020, ‘The Steeple Times’ named and shamed a female e-scooter user who abused a pedestrian in Belgravia after she was asked to not use her dangerous mobile deathtrap on the pavement; in July 2019 we extensively reported on another horror, Ambar Zohra, hitting a pedestrian in Walton Street, SW3 and hurling the telephone of editor Matthew Steeples into the road when he tried to photograph her antics. Potty mouthed Miss Zohra “screamed abuse and profanities” but was called out by Jane Morris of legendary firm Percy Bass who remarked: “Where do you think you are from? The five floors of whores?”