E-scooter collisions have trebled in three years, prompting urgent calls for law changes.
Deaths and serious injuries linked to the powerful motorised machines have also reached worryingly high levels, a Mail investigation has found.
Safety campaigners, including the family of the first pedestrian killed in an e-scooter collision, are calling for legal safeguards on their use, and want police to enforce the rules banning them from pavements.
In total, 29 people died between 2020 and 2023 in 4,506 e-scooter collisions, which also caused 4,807 injuries, 1,402 of them serious.
AA president Edmund King said: ‘These figures show a worrying trend that needs to be nipped in the bud by legislation and better police enforcement.’
He said legislation was needed urgently to ‘regulate top speeds, brakes and size of wheels’ and to prevent the importation of dangerous batteries which can cause fires.
Across the UK in 2020, there were 460 collisions involving the vehicles, with 484 people injured and one death.
Since then, incidents have increased dramatically and peaked in 2022 when there were 1,402 collisions, with 1502 injuries and 12 deaths.
Recent casualties have included Have I Got News For You host Ian Hislop, 64, who suffered a head injury when he was hit by an e-bike on December 11.
Privately owned electric scooters – which can reach speeds of 90mph with modifications – are sold widely without identity checks but are supposed to be used only on private land, and are illegal on public roads and footpaths.
The scooters are available to hire in some towns and cities for people aged 16 and over with a provisional driving licence, under a trial scheme with speeds limited to 15.5mph, but there is concern about false identity documents being used to hire them.
The Government is consulting on whether to allow the use of e-scooters nationwide, but safety campaigners, the Royal National Institute for the Blind and victims’ families are urging ministers to get tougher on regulating the machines.
These could include speed limiters and training requirements for riders, and a crackdown on hired vehicles being left strewn across pavements.
Rebecca Williams, 45, daughter of Linda Davis – the first pedestrian to be killed in a collision with an e-scooter in the UK – said of the rising death toll: ‘I’m not shocked by it at all.’
Grandmother Mrs Davis, 71, was killed in Rainworth, Nottinghamshire, in June 2022 by a 14-year-old boy who was on his phone while riding an e-scooter.
Her daughter added: ‘Everyone on a e-scooter should do compulsory basic training like on a motorbike, should have insurance, pay tax and have a registration plate so they are traceable if they are involved in an accident.
‘I can’t get on a motorbike and just head off – I had to do training to ride one at 16 years of age.’
The youngster who caused the death of retired cleaner Mrs Davis was prosecuted for causing death while riding without a licence or insurance.
Her husband of 52 years, Garry Davis, 75 – who called his wife ‘the centre of my world’ – has criticised ministers for failing to regulate the sale of e-scooters.
Speaking last year after the boy was given a community sentence by Nottingham Youth Court due to his age and lack of previous convictions, he said: ‘The Government’s at fault. They set them up (the scooter rental schemes) and everyone thinks they can ride them.
‘The law stinks. If you or I were driving on the pavement in an uninsured car or an uninsured motorbike, you’d have been locked up.’
Of the 29 fatalities on e-scooters between 2020 and 2023, all but Mrs Davis have been riders.
In the same period, 525 pedestrians have been injured, according to the Department for Transport.
Major urban areas have the highest rates, with London having the largest number of collisions.
The Metropolitan Police dealt with 586 incidents between 2020 and last autumn. Merseyside dealt with 76 collisions, including one fatal crash, in the same period.
The Royal National Institute for the Blind said e-scooters had become a daily hazard for blind or partially-sighted people, with a survey finding nearly a quarter of respondents had been in a collision with one.
Some 47 per cent said e-scooters and hire bikes ‘stop them from getting out and about’.
RNIB policy officer Erik Matthies said: ‘It’s worrying that so many blind and partially sighted people are colliding with or falling over e-scooters and dockless bikes.
‘They’re often ridden on pavements or left strewn in public places which pose a serious threat to walking safely and can force people to step into the road to get by them, which then puts blind and partially sighted people at risk from other vehicles.’
Nicholas Lyes, of road safety campaign group IAM RoadSmart, said: ‘The rise in collisions involving e-scooters highlights the need for an urgent review of regulations.’ He added that plans to legalise the devices ‘must be accompanied’ by strict standards and regulations.
The warnings come as an inquest is due to start in Bolton today into the death of a 15-year-old boy whose e-bike smashed into a moving ambulance moments after he was followed by a marked police car.
Saul Cookson suffered fatal injuries in the collision in Salford on June 8, 2023.
His funeral coincided with incidents of disorder, including fireworks launched at a police station and vehicles set alight.
The tragedy is also being investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
A government spokesman said: ‘We recognise the concerns around e-bikes and e-scooters, particularly for vulnerable groups, and we are closely following the e-scooter trials.
‘Private e-scooters remain illegal to use on public roads, and trial e-scooters must meet construction standards.’