Should it be legal to ride e-scooters on public roads and pavements?

The pavement clause turned this into less a referendum on e-scooters than on who gets priority in shared public space. No won decisively, but the room’s real position was more conditional: legal road use attracted substantial sympathy, while pavements were treated as the deal-breaker.

The floor’s most-respected No case was blunt: “These users are selfish & dangerous.” Other No voters accepted that roads might work with registration, licensing and insurance, but doubted the state could police the distinction when “the police can barely be bothered to stop illegal electric motorbikes as it is”.

Yes voters were not arguing for a free-for-all. Their strongest case was “Yes, with proper regulations, registrations and insurance”, while another said responsible riders should not be penalised for the bad conduct of others; a more hopeful voice, drawing on experience abroad, concluded: “I definitely think they could work.” That case answered the question as one of regulation, while much of the No side answered the pavement clause itself.

The broadest agreement was therefore not a ban on the technology but a demand for separation and control: “On public roads yes. On pavements? Never.” Across the room came versions of the same settlement — registration, insurance, training, age limits and enforcement — alongside fears about injury, abandoned vehicles, congestion and pedestrians being forced to dodge silent machines.

The wording did much of the counting before voters reached the button. A proposal for regulated road use might have found a hearing; a proposal that also opened pavements did not.