Britain | Scoot first

A trial of e-scooters in Britain has encouraging results

But the public remains to be convinced

Young women riding eScooters on 3rd March 2022 in London, United Kingdom. A scooter-sharing system is a shared transport service in which electric motorized scooters, also referred to as e-scooters, are made available to use for short-term rentals. E-scooters are typically dockless, meaning that they do not have a fixed home location and are dropped off and picked up from certain locations in the service area. (photo by Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)
|Portsmouth

On England’s south coast, Michael Dewey is about to hop onto a coral-coloured e-scooter. Mr Dewey usually drives to and from Portsmouth Harbour, where he works in the docks, but today he left his car in the garage. It will cost him £1.90 ($2.10) to rent the scooter for the four-mile (6km) journey home. He reckons a taxi fare would be four times that.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Scoot first, ask questions later”

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