E-scooters are not legal in the UK except where trials are being run. So they can be used on private land, but not on public road or pavement. Blackpool, particularly. Yet I met two in use in my last wander through the local park. The trials were announced as changed a year earlier, and the missing detail is that they are only permitted where trials are running. As it is, there are issues with user licences (A,B, AM, Q, full EU licence), whether the bikes must have lights, where they can be used (not at all on the pavement, but cycle lanes are OK) and whether users should be wearing protective clothing (same position as a bicycle). Given the Cummings Effect that pushes the chancer mentality (just do it; you probably won't get stopped). Here's the gov't guidance. Don't confuse this with an e-bike. Interactive map may be misleading. They class as PLEVs, personal light electric vehicles, so they have mostly the same legal requirements as, say the motor scooter as in the background of my inset picture. The trials are revealing issues. Gov't paper to read (nothing new). Interim report from trial area in York.
Typo: 'provbably' keeps occurring. How appropriate for those who feel they'll always 'get away with it'. Because they are the elite, as each such occasion shows. That's evidence, not proof; a single counter example amounts to disproof. 20210705.
I'm afraid my own perception is that a bike (and e-bike and e-scooter) remains largely unsafe, given traffic attitudes. I am very unhappy at bikes of any sort on pedestrian pavement and I recognise that perhaps we need modified rules for runners, being pavement users at some speed. Perhaps there is an upper limit we can agree is acceptable, like ten or twelve miles an hour. I continue to feel that bike security and the requirements for protective equipment (and so, carrying it with you once the bike is parked) work against using a bike at all. Thus I can see that publicly owned e-bikes and e-scooters offer a way forward, but that then the attached issues change. For example, if one 'hires' such a contrivance, I'd like it to have an unobtrusive 'on hire' flag so it isn't 'stolen' as soon as you park it. I presume that all such devices have locator signals and that some central body is following the usage, including perhaps recognising possible accidents.
I note that powered wheelchairs have an upper speed limit of 4mph in pedestrian areas. Source, rule 39.
[12] https://www.lancs.live/news/uk-world-news/electric-scooter-rules-change-saturday-18518861
[13] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/e-scooter-trials-guidance-for-users
[14] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8958/