eScooters to roll out on to Hamilton Streets

Mayor Andrew King on his push scooter. The mayor has been an avid supporter of bring escooters into the city. Photo / Tom Rowland

E-scooters roll into Hamilton from July, despite concerns over their safety.

Hamilton City Council approved a six-month trial, 10 votes to two, for the hire of scooters, however, councillors Mark Bunting and Garry Mallett raised concerns over their safety.

Mr Bunting said that council needed to take a safe and cautious approach to introducing e-scooters and bikes into the city.

"Hamilton is geographically different to the other cities that have been on trial. We have bridges," Mr Bunting said.

"It's really interesting that we are really keen to take the brakes off and not regulate this, but when it comes to pokies we want to regulate those because they are dangerous to society. Well these are dangerous as well because they hit people. Where is the consistency here?"

"Lets be safe about this and not bite off more than we can chew."

Mr Mallett said the council could not promote the safety of their footpaths if the scooters were driving around on them.

"We've got no speed limits, we've got no keep left rule, we've got no rules at all," Mr Mallett said.

The safety of e-scooters have been brought into the spotlight recently, with the New Zealand Herald reporting that since Lime Scooter's debut in October last year, e-scooters have cost taxpayers nearly $3 million in ACC injury claims.

This week in Auckland a woman getting off the bus near Victoria Park was knocked over and left bleeding, her head wedged against a wheel of a bus. She ended up in hospital with another man who had suffered head injuries in a different incident after being struck by a Lime scooter while riding his bike.

Despite the warning from councillors Bunting and Mallett, there was plenty of support around the table to carry on with the trial.

Councillor Dave Macpherson said there were inherent risks on any transports the city ran, but it was time for Hamilton to be the city of the future.

"The times I've seen the mayor scootering around the central city, there are no rules applying to him. We haven't worried about the risks to him. Maybe some people are keen on those risks," Mr Macpherson said.

Councillor Geoff Taylor said that there is a code of practice for use and operators had to satisfy council that they would be safe.

"I'm not saying these things should be operated unsafely, I'm saying don't impose a cap on the number of devices when there isn't the information on which to base that decision."

"We are a modern city and we should be offering modern alternative transports."