Lime-S electric scooter of the company Lime in the street in Lyon France
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The U.K.’s Department for Transport (DfT) is meeting with stakeholders on July 15 to gauge views on whether e-scooters should be legalized for use in Britain–currently they are only allowed on private land.
In March, the DfT announced it was opening “the biggest regulatory review in a generation” of current right-of-way laws, including a key one from 1835, enacted long before the advent of either bicycles or automobiles.
It is believed that the DfT is under increasing commercial pressure to allow e-scooters to become legal for use on roads and cycleways. Unicorns Bird and Lime each became valued at north of $1-billion within 18 months of their founding, and have Silicon Valley backers with even deeper pockets.
