Angry Northampton resident slams e-scooters after 'catching 160 ILLEGAL riders' outside his Northampton home

An angry resident has raised concerns over the ‘irresponsible’, ‘unprecedented’ and ‘dangerous’ rise in underage and illegal electronic scooter riders in Northampton.

A Far Cotton resident, who wishes not to be named, got in touch with this newspaper recentlyasking, ‘how are children accessing these vehicles?’.

The resident says he has tracked around 160 incidents of underage riders, ‘double-riders’, and even ‘triple-riders’ driving Voi e-scooters illegally on the pavement past his house in Towcester Road since May.

The man says he has reported one person SIX times but still feels like nothing has been done by Voi.

He said: “There is total lack of enforcement by the police or West Northants Council (WNC).

"The main stay that prompted me to compile this report is the danger presented to pedestrians that I see every single day.”

The disgruntled resident went on to list the types of dodgy driving he sees from his home and 24/7 CCTV system.

He said: "Underage riding, twin and even triple riding. Riders twin riding on the phone, infant children on e-scooters with parents with all of them on the footpaths directly in front of my property.

"We have an elderly demographic here in Far Cotton and they should be able to walk the footpaths here without having to be dodging the irresponsible behaviour of not just Voi scooters but the unprecedented rise in the privately owned e-scooters.”

The man is calling on the police and the council to ‘take responsibility’.

He said: “How are children accessing these vehicles? There must be a far more robust system for checking driving licenses, youngsters are clearly being given access to parents/friend’s accounts.

"Helmets should be made a legal requirement. Perhaps geofencing the paths to protect pedestrians? This should have all been done prior to the trial starting, it is very difficult to row back on established habits

“Is anyone going to take responsibility for policing the use of the scooters?”

A Voi spokeswoman said that underage riding is ‘unacceptable’ and that it is investigating the man’s reports, with some riders already being banned.

The spokeswoman said: “Voi, WNC and Northamptonshire Police all agree underage riding is unacceptable.

"We are distributing leaflets to all schools warning all under-18s and existing Voi users of the penalties of underage riding and account sharing as part of ongoing communications about responsible and safe e-scooter riding.

“We are investigating the man’s reports. Some of his reports resulted in bans from Voi. We are all working together to see what further improvements can be made to deter further underage riding.

“The vast majority of Voi riders are law-abiding. During the course of the Northampton trial we have seen over 63,000 people take nearly three million journeys on e-scooters and about a third of those have replaced car journeys.”

Two people have died as a result of accidents involving the e-scooters in Northampton since the start of the trial. A pensioner died in October 2020 after they fell into the road trying to move one. A 21-year-old woman riding one died in December 2021 after a collision with a car.

In the murder trial of 16-year-old Fred Shand, damning evidence has emerged of a 15 year old defendant using a Voi e-scooter in the build-up to Fred’s murder.