Your report on the e-scooter trial (Oxford Times, April 7) is highly self-congratulatory.
Towards the end of the article mention is made of ensuring ‘the safety of riders and other road users’.
No mention whatever is made of the safety of pedestrians, who are surely the most vulnerable when it comes to the matter of misuse of e-scooters.
I am writing after witnessing a most extraordinary incident in Magdalen Street mid-afternoon on Thursday, April 7.
Having just come out of the Ashmolean I was walking on the pavement between the bus-stops and the shops on Magdalen Street on my way to Cornmarket.
As is common in that area, the pavement was busy with people milling around.
Read again: 100 spoken to by police in e-scooter operation
Suddenly an e-scooter emerged along the pavement, travelling towards St Giles at speed, at least 10 mph I would estimate, and carving out a route for itself between the people without any attempt to slow down. The rider brushed me as he passed. I shouted at him to stop but he took no notice. I was deeply shaken by the incident.
Rarely have I witnessed such recklessness. Had anyone stepped out in front of him - a child, for example, an elderly person, a pregnant woman - there is no way that they would not have been very seriously injured.
Read more: Cowley Road Carnival is cancelled
Your article makes the point that the use of private e-scooters is illegal. What anyone using an e-scooter needs to remember, and this applies equally to parents buying an e-scooter for a child or young adult, is that, without insurance, the individual riding the e-scooter is personally liable for any injury they cause.
I would have no hesitation in suing personally a rider of an e-scooter who caused injury to any member of my family.
The e-scooter being ridden was not one of those in the Oxford trial but the issues of insurance and personal responsibility apply equally to anyone hiring an e-scooter.
No-one riding an e-scooter should ever ride along a pavement.
Harry Dickinson
Cumnor
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