Black Londoners are being unfairly penalised for using sustainable transport

We’ve uncovered new data which suggests that Black people riding e-scooters are stopped disproportionately compared to white people.

We submitted a number of freedom of information requests to the Met Police, and the data show that Black Londoners were over three times more likely to be stopped for e-scooter offences than white Londoners in 2020. 

Not only that, but of those stopped, Black people are nearly twice as likely to face potential prosecution as white people, and only half as likely to face no further action. (Use of privately owned e-scooters remains illegal on UK roads and pavements, despite a range of legal hire schemes in some cities including London).

Following a 450% surge in e-scooter sales in late 2020, the Met’s targeting of private e-scooter use in London stepped up a gear in 2021. New figures obtained this autumn show the Met confiscated nearly 3000 e-scooters from Londoners in the first seven and a half months of 2021 - nearly ten times as many as in the whole of 2020.  

In the month of June alone, TfL data shows that over 35,000 e-scooter trips were made legally on e-scooters hired from venture capital-backed operators; meanwhile, our data shows that in the same month the Met seized 1,103 privately owned e-scooters from Londoners. 

Unfortunately, the Met have refused to disclose any further ethnicity data on the Londoners targeted in 2021, on the grounds that they have now penalised so many Londoners for riding e-scooters that processing this data would exceed the cost threshold for fulfilling freedom of information requests.

Our findings only add to the pressure on the government to make e-scooters road-legal without a requirement for a driving licence to ride one.

Micromobility is one of the most exciting developments in sustainable transport today, with the potential to cut car emissions in half if used wisely, but Britain’s outdated legislation is standing in the way of its potential to decarbonise travel in our cities and beyond - with Black people on the front line of the consequences.

It’s time to make e-scooters legal to ride in our streets.