Did police scooter revolution fall foul of the law?

4:24pm Tuesday 18th December 2007

Comments (4)   Have your say »

It was billed as the scooter of the future and now Sutton police may have overstepped the mark by making the Segway personal transporter a scooter of the present.

Officers have been accused of acting above the law by test driving the self-balancing vehicle in Manor Park and Sutton High Street earlier this month.

The police wanted to gauge public reaction to the Segway, which rolls up to 12.5mph and raises the user 8in off the ground.

But they appear to have been unaware the two-wheeled vehicle - used by agencies in America, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal - can only be used on private property in this country.

The alleged mistake was spotted by Nicholas Ashton, inventor of the Segway Street Smart Revolution, who read the story on our website at his home in Utah.

He told the Sutton Guardian: "I found it all rather strange. We have been in negotiation for deployment at Heathrow Airport for six months.

"It has now been stopped because the unit does not comply with the 1974 Road Traffic Act. There is also an EU concern."

Several readers were also dumbfounded by the trial, as only electric wheelchairs and mobility scooters are allowed alongside pedestrians in Britain.

But Sutton police are unapologetic. A spokesman said: "The two battery powered Segways were not used on the roads or pedestrian-only routes, but only in areas where bicycles are allowed, and at certain times of the day in the town centre, where motor vehicles are also allowed."

This week the Department for Transport would say only that courts would need to decide whether the trial was "undertaken within the law".

The restriction on Segways may be just as well. In Sutton, the scooters were mocked as rolling lollipops that would stop fugitives in their tracks with uncontrollable laughter.