The anti e-scooter lobby had a field day earlier this week with a story about crime on farmland. The NFU released some insurance claim figures with some narrative comments about the underlying trends, including the very disquieting one that thieves are using long term surveillance to grab quad bikes. The media spin chose to ignore that one, and made the headline all about the occasional use of e-scooters by the criminal gangs, no surprise there…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58066465
Criminals have always been early adopters of the best new technology, from mobile phones for look outs back in the previous millennium, to their use of drones to transport drugs into prisons and across borders. But just because a tech advance can be subverted for use with crime shouldn’t viewed as a reason to suppress its use where there is clear benefit to the law-abiding majority. An unenforceable outright ban on private use in public places, which is the current position, just hurts legal users, and clearly criminals are going to ignore it anyway.
When bans are enforced in as a response to crime, it’s always the rest of us who are inconvenienced, and this appears to be a modern phenomonen, – after all, horse ownership wasn’t banned when highwayman adopted them. Of course, it’s easily justified for some things (guns for example), but scooters are not dangerous weapons.
So, how about some positive press for a change ?
The fact that e-scooters offer an affordable, environmentally friendly way for many on a low income to get around, and thus have benefits which dwarf any downsides, hardly gets a mention in the press. You could be forgiven for thinking that those in charge don’t actually want to empower or improve the lives for the masses, or even for the planet itself.…