E-scooters: Website offers help to check if your scooter is legal

Warren Brandt's Safescoot.ie cautions that it does not offer legal advice — but a Cork councillor has welcomed the website's 'easier-to-understand' information 

Cork city councillor Oliver Moran said: 'A website like this makes it much easier to understand if what you're planning on buying, or own already, is legal or not.' Stock picture: Denis Minihane

A Cork amateur software developer has created a website to determine whether an e-scooter is legal to use on Irish roads.

Safescoot.ie has the tagline: “Find out if your e-scooter is road-legal in Ireland — before the gardaí do.”

The website looks at specs including power, top speed, weight, whether a seat or light is fitted, and provides a breakdown of seizure risk and where someone stands if they already own one of these vehicles.

The free software was built specifically for Irish law by Warren Brandt, who lives in Riverstick.

Mr Brandt said he loves developing software, and scours the internet looking for ideas and opportunities.

“I have been hearing about the e-scooter laws in Ireland, and I started thinking there’s not much to point people in the right direction.”

The project entailed a couple of months of daily research, and then the development process took five days.

Mr Brandt said: “It’s a nice tool to help people; it makes it easier than going through pages and pages on the Road Safety Authority website.

“You put in the specs, and it tells you if your scooter is legal or not — it can be used if you already own a scooter or as a reference if you’re buying one.”

It comes as seizures have been ramping up.

Gardaí confiscated 1,412 e-scooters in the first half of this year compared to 931 in the whole of 2025 and 310 in 2024.

New laws have recently been brought in, and Mr Brandt said that given further law changes were likely soon, he planned to keep updating the site.

He said he was considering a suggestion from Cork city councillor Oliver Moran to add e-bikes to the website.

The Green Party councillor said: “I see e-scooters around town that clearly don’t meet the legal requirements. Somebody has sold them to the people riding them and never advised them of the rules on the use of e-scooters.

“The information is available on Citizens Information, but a website like this makes it much easier to understand if what you're planning on buying, or own already, is legal or not.” 

He said that the same goes for e-bikes.

“There are retailers willing to sell unsuspecting buyers bikes that are legally e-mopeds, that need to be registered, taxed, and in some cases require insurance and a driver’s licence.” 

He congratulated Mr Brandt for “a smart, helpful, and useful website" and added: 

“In a time of tech billionaires and ethical questions about AI, it’s a real example of socially conscious software."