Law will curb e-scooter enthusiasts

For people concerned about safety on Manitoba’s sidewalks and roadways, the province’s announcement that new rules will be introduced next year regarding the use of e-scooters and other personal electric vehicles (PEVs) was no doubt met with an enthusiastic “It’s about time.”

As their popularity and their presence among pedestrians on sidewalks and/or motor vehicles on the road has increased steadily, so have reports of close calls or, even worse, collisions involving e-scooters or other PEVs — including electric skateboards, hoverboards and unicycles — being operated imprudently and at unsafe speeds.

Traffic laws urgently need to be updated to govern the use of these conveyances, which up until now have remained in a regulatory grey area that has allowed PEVs to operate largely without guidelines and outside conventional avenues of traffic-safety enforcement. Accordingly, updates regarding PEV use will be included in the Highway Traffic Act in 2027.

The new legislation will govern such areas as mandatory helmet use, age restrictions, where PEVs can lawfully operate and the maximum speed at which they can travel (25 km/h). The aim of the new law, according to the province’s website, is “to help keep Manitobans safe when sharing roads, paths, and other public spaces.”

A laudable goal, indeed. And the restrictions proposed within the legislation seem to sensibly address concerns about PEV use on sidewalks, cycling paths and roadways. But the impending rollout of the regulations inevitably prompts a fairly direct question: “OK, so now what?”

In other words, who’s going to enforce these new restrictions, and how?

The practical elements of the proposed legislation are straightforward: PEV users must be at least 16 years of age and must wear a properly fitted helmet; PEV use is restricted to roads with speed limits of 50 km/h or less as well as bicycle lanes, pathways and cycling facilities (subject to local rules), and PEVs cannot be used on sidewalks except where signage specifically permits their use.

The enforcement portion of the equation, however, seems significantly less clear: according to the government website, “Police and other peace officers can stop PEV riders, enforce the rules, and inspect PEVs and safety equipment to ensure they meet legal requirements.”

There’s no mention of what the penalties will be for violating the new law, and given the limited availability of law-enforcement personnel to deal with other non-emergency situations in Winnipeg and other jurisdictions, it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which policing PEV use becomes a high-priority consideration.

There are, of course, many PEV users who will welcome and obey the new legislation as enacted, because they understand how the addition of these practical and eco-friendly options for active transportation must be accompanied by regulations that allow them to safely co-exist with other users of pathways and roadways.

Unfortunately, as in all other segments of society, there are those in the PEV-using community who have chosen — and will no doubt continue to choose — to operate in manner that puts themselves and others at risk. Expecting them to self-police is, quite frankly, pointless.

There’s little reason to expect the introduction of helmet requirements and speed limits will prompt a change in behaviour of those who habitually careen helmetlessly along sidewalks at whatever top speed their e-scooter can achieve, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic with an apparent disregard for the calamity they risk creating,

E-scooters seem to be everywhere these days, in greater numbers with each passing warm-weather month. It will be up to the province and law-enforcement agencies to use the coming winter respite from e-scooter chaos to figure out how to turn the new legislation’s admirable intentions into a realistically enforceable set of road-safety rules.