In London, regulations on electric scooters that cause the vehicle to suddenly stop operating when entering prohibited areas have been relaxed to reduce user injuries.

Transport for London (TfL) said 15% of all e-scooter journeys were affected by geofencing technology, which causes power to be reduced or the motor to stop once in a controlled area.

TfL said ‘go slow’ zones – where vehicle speed is automatically reduced – and ‘no go’ zones had been reduced across the capital to improve the driver experience.

But Sarah Gayton, of the charity NFBUK, called for the trial to be “stopped completely”, saying the e-scooters were being used “recklessly”.

The electric scooters are available to rent as part of an ongoing national trial, overseen in London by TfL.

They are still banned from crossing large parts of the city center, including the Royal Parks, the South Bank and the area around St Paul’s Cathedral.

Helen Sharp, head of TfL’s e-scooter trials, said safety was “at the heart of our e-scooter trial, with London having high safety standards”.

“Recently, in collaboration with the districts and participating operators, we reduced the number of slow and prohibited traffic zones in the test zone, in order to improve the user experience without affecting those who do not use the service,” she said.

In areas not covered by ‘no-go’ or ‘go slow’ zones, scooters are limited to a maximum speed of 20km/h, although the government has set a national limit of 25km/h.

London councils and TfL have said the proposed increase in the speed limit for e-scooters will not go ahead until ‘go slow’ and ‘no-go’ zones are largely removed.

TfL receives weekly incident reports in which a motorcyclist is ‘pinned’ by a geofence zone, resulting in a sudden loss of power creating a significant risk to the motorcyclist.

According to TfL, this technology has affected 15% of all e-scooter users, and 40% of these users no longer use this mode of transport.

There were 51 serious pedestrian injuries caused by e-scooter collisions between 2021 and 2022.