Police crack down on rogue e-scooter riders as injuries surge | A Current Affair

now from disrespecting pedestrians to disregarding speed limits electric scooters are wreaking havoc on our roads it sparked a police crackdown after too many joyrides sadly turned fatal [Music] i've jumped on the footpath and he just narrowly missed all of us a rogue e scooter rider has plowed into an 11 year old boy he'd even say sorry to me he just like ran an e-scooter coming up behind fast is a bit like a truck passing really fast when you're driving on a freeway it's seriously scary a great new way to explore the city or a hazardous nuisance it's been three weeks since e-scooters rolled into melbourne part of a year-long trial but already that's been thrown a little off-balance by a few rogue riders being old i don't always hear them coming you know and i've been frightened i'd be run over i think they're awful and i think they should go [Music] lunchtime in melbourne's cbd and we're hard-pressed to find a rider who isn't breaking the rules from overloaded scooters to people not wearing helmets and this man on a private e-scooter most of which are only allowed on private property in victoria we have a quick chat with you about your scooter do you realize you're breaking the law by riding it like that on the footpath you've got no helmet on he isn't phased when he emerges minutes later you can't be riding on the footpath you're gonna bowl someone over and his day's about to go from bad to worse also catching the attention of passing police you don't have a helmet on and these are unregistered motor vehicles have you got any idea on you today as he's speaking with officers two rule-breaking tradies zoom past you guys having a ride too without a helmet the cops have just pulled this guy over so yeah i don't want to be video camera you know you can't be riding on the footpath here you've got no helmet either where are you going uh i'm just going to uh bring the siege state you know you can't ride these on the footpath you get cheers man you know you can't ride them with two people on there oh can't we the police will find you these hooligans also catch the attention of police speeding away before officers catch up with them it's this blatant disregard for road rules that's got ben rossiter seeing red we've been astounded at the number of e-scooters illegally riding on foot bars we were told they wouldn't and they are ben's from victoria walks which advocates for pedestrians for elderly people people with disability or families with young children being hit by e-scooters can have drastic impacts and it already has this elderly woman was hospitalized after being bowled over by two kids and how about this man going for a peak hour five kilometer joyride on the eastlink freeway through a tunnel before being cornered by an incident response team and it's not only a scooter riders playing russian roulette this man takes it to a whole new level barreling down the middle of a busy road on an electric skateboard we're seeing e-scooter injuries really on a daily basis it's a new addition to our trauma workload associate professor mark putland is director of emergency medicine at the royal melbourne hospital a lot of them are minor injuries scrapes and cuts broken wrists that kind of thing but some actually pretty major and catastrophic injuries nasty head injuries you imagine knocking out all of your teeth and cutting your lips up that's a that's a big thing for a person to come back from in recent weeks a scooter riders have tragically died in melbourne and perth and your head can hit the ground really hard brain injuries don't heal you can heal bone injuries you can heal skin you can heal a lot of things we can't really fix brain injury i think they're good but they could be dangerous to be honest with you it's my first day driving today and i actually nearly crashed into a couple of people because they're not really wary of what's actually going on what do you think of the rules are they a bit confusing what you can and can't do with them yes because i i think i was literally talking with him on the way here like am i meant to ride on this footpath am i not meant to ride in the footpath i'm meant to go with the road adding to the confusion different road rules depending on where you live the queensland government's just announced a crackdown on what it calls cowboy riders slashing the footpath speed limit by half and vowing to make it illegal to drink and ride back in victoria police have launched a crackdown on rogue riders i'm doing the right thing no no you're not let me tell ya they're illegal so too has scooter provide a lime we will ban riders we'll find riders as well not a great look then that a company contracted to maintain its scooters was also caught flouting the rules it says that the whole scooter trial doesn't really care about walkers with so many doing the wrong thing what happens if someone gets hurt both companies part of the victorian trial have third-party insurance covering writers and anyone they injure but there's a very big bus more often than not chances are the policy will be voided tony carbone is one of the country's leading personal injury lawyers the innocent third person that's hit by a scooter is at the mercy of the person riding the scooter not breaking a rental agreement if they break any of those rules the policy becomes void and they're not covered starkly different to the system that protects anyone hit by a car due to the negligent driving or someone's intoxicated or under influence of drugs the innocent third party is covered at all times i think the kids love them but maybe they're not for everybody [Music] you

Channel: A Current Affair

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Keywords: a current affair, a current affair scam, a current affair reporter, a current affair australia, channel 9 news, 9 news australia, australia news, world news, australian news, channel 9, scooter road rage, e scooter, e-scooters, electric scooters, australia e-scooters, e-scooters australia, scooter crackdown, city scooters, city e-scooters, e scooter riders, scooter riders, e-scooter death, e-scooter injuries, scooter death, scooter crash, scooters, fatal e scooter

Id: rrERPHYugbo

Length: 6min 20sec (380 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 23 2022