A Letterkenny councillor has called for bye-laws in Donegal to regulate the use of e-scooters.
Cllr Gerry McMonagle said that walkers have had ‘the life scared out of them’ by electric scooter users speeding past them. He has called for an information campaign and the enforcement of bye-laws by Donegal County Council, rather than the local authority waiting on government regulations later this year.
“I’m not against them, this is for the protection of the users and the people on footpaths particularly the vulnerable, the elderly and children,” Cllr McMonagle told Tuesday’s meeting of the Letterkenny-Milford MD.
“There are no regulations at the minute, they are banned off the highway but we’ve seen them criss-cross from the footpaths to the road.
“It’s an affordable mode of transport, but we need to make it a safe mode of transport.”
Cllr McMonagle said he has personally had near-misses due to unsafe practices. He suggested that helmets or a test of the rules of the road could be enforced to improve safety.
“They (e-scooter users) need to know if they are sharing a path with pedestrians that they need to be ultra careful,” he said.
E-Scooters are not yet legal to use on public roads under the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023. Regulations are in the pipeline to classify e-scooters as Personal Powered Transporters, which will likely be introduced in the last quarter of 2023.
