E-scooter ban for U16s to be operational from Monday

Under the new regulations, there must be two brakes on scooters, a centred light on the front of a scooter must be white and 'be visible during lighting-up hours in clear weather for a distance of at least 50m'. Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Children under the age of 16 will be banned from using e-scooters in a public place from this Monday.

The move comes after Transport Minister Eamon Ryan signed and published the Road Traffic (Electric Scooters) Regulations. The regulations limit the factory-allowed speed of scooters to 20km/hr and limit their use to one passenger at a time.

Under the new regulations, there must be two brakes on scooters, a centred light on the front of a scooter must be white and "be visible during lighting-up hours in clear weather for a distance of at least 50m". The regulations also state that an electric scooter "shall be fitted with an audible warning device, bell, or horn enabling the driver to give sufficient warning of the approach or position of the vehicle whenever necessary in a public place".

In addition, an electric scooter "shall not be fitted with a seat" and "the use of an electric scooter for the carriage of more than one person at the same time is prohibited", with strict requirements on the size of wheels, which will have to be 200mm.

The signing of the regulations means that higher-powered e-scooters, many of which are already in circulation, will remain illegal on Irish roads.

The Road Safety Authority (PSA) will now launch a TV campaign around e-scooters.

RSA chief executive Sam Waide said: “Next week marks an important change on Irish roads. We are asking people on e-scooters and other road users to familiarise themselves with the traffic laws and regulations concerning this new vehicle type.”

The RSA’s advertising campaign will be extensive and will support both e-scooters and other road users to understand how to share the roads safely together. It aims to remind all road users that we are all people sharing the roads together.

As part of the plan, e-scooters will now be classified as personal powered transporters.

In June 2022, Mr Ryan said that section 34 of the Roads Traffic Bill relating to e-scooters and other powered personal transporters (PPTs) should be deleted, meaning that it will not be illegal for children to buy e-scooters as had originally been planned, because such a ban would be unenforceable.

In particular, Mr Ryan pointed to the absence of a national identification card system as the key reason why limiting e-scooters’ use by age could not be enforced.

“You can’t enforce identification,” Mr Ryan told the committee. “So the policing of this is the primary reason why it wouldn’t be enforceable. So introducing a law which is not enforceable is bad law.”

The original legislation had provided for PPTs to have an unladen weight not above 55kg, but this has been reduced to 25kg in an amendment by the minister in order to comply with EU rules.