In their first week of operation on the Isle of Wight, 25 Beryl e-Scooters have travelled over 4,000km and been used for over 700 journeys – with the number of scooters available set to double.
e-Scooters are available to hire through the free Beryl app and can be picked up and dropped off in marked ‘Beryl Bays’ across Newport, although residents have been complaining about scooters being dumped at the side of the road.
With 22 Beryl Bays positioned at key locations and transport hubs in Newport such as Town Lane, Carisbrooke Road and St Mary’s Hospital, there will always be an e-Scooter nearby.
Islanders will see the number of e-Scooters in Newport double by the end of this week, from 25 to 50, while plans are being made to roll-out a further 100 e-Scooters and extend the service area into Cowes and Ryde in the coming weeks.
Through Beryl’s high-tech GPS tracking solutions and data platform they are providing the Isle of Wight Council with valuable data insights on how e-Scooters are being used. Data from the first week of the scheme’s operation reveal that each e-Scooter is used up to 7 times per day.
Beryl e-Scooters are capped at a top speed of 12.5mph and in adherence with the law are only allowed on the road, not on pavements. However, some younger riders have been seen taking the e-Scooters on the dual carriageway and travelling the wrong way up one-way streets.
All riders are required to provide a UK-valid provisional or full Driving Licence to use the e-Scooters. Anyone caught fraudulently riding with another person’s licence will be banned indefinitely and could face police action.
Philip Ellis, Beryl CEO, said:
“It has been amazing to see how Islanders have adopted the e-Scooter share scheme in such a short space of time by using it to make journeys in and around Newport. The e-Scooters have made travelling around both easier and healthier for local people, and the local environment will benefit from reduced pollution and better air quality.
“Now, more than ever, shared e-Scooters have become essential transportation options for people to travel safely during the pandemic. Since e-Scooters are still relatively new to the region, there are lessons to be learned. Beryl is working closely with the Isle of Wight Council, Solent Transport, Island Roads and Hampshire Police to promote safe use and that maximise the benefits of e-Scooters.”
For more information on Beryl’s innovative e-scooter and bike share scheme, visit beryl.cc.
However, some younger riders have been seen taking the e-Scooters on the dual carriageway and travelling the wrong way up one-way streets.
Not yet seen one being ridden properly, they have been used for stunts, giving lifts, in contradiction of road safety -through red lights, on pavements -pedestrian zones, wrong way down main roads.
Anyone caught fraudulently riding with another person’s licence will be banned indefinitely and could face police action.
Softly softly attitude will NOT STOP the idiots, They Must face police action, kids today know they will get away with it 99% of the time and even if caught they get a verbal caution. If it cant be policed to stop riders using other peoples licence then how will an indefinite ban be enforced.
Is it going to take a death or life changing injuries to an innocent pedestrian before their danger is taken seriously.
But did you check if the riders held a current driving licence, provisional or otherwise ?. I saw a gaggle of them on the pavement at Coppin’s Bridge. Who is enforcing the law ? not the police, they haven’t the capacity to properly enforce the present traffic laws.
I would like to know if they cause or have an accident who do we go to for the insurance, the person riding or the IW Council?
I think this should be public knowledge.
The rider is responsible for the first £250 of damage and thereafter Beryl insurance pays
the problem comes, when an unlicensed rider is the operator that causes the accident as Beryl’s insurance would be invalid, and a long legal battle would start against beryl directors or claim against their public liability insurance, either way a time consuming and costly experience, and the unlicensed, therefore uninsured, rider gets away scott free.
And the ones that were mindlessly discarded at the bottom of Horsebridge Hill Friday morning, where did they come from?
A most ridiculous mode of transport, in a cold, wet, country.
The carbon saving will be nothing, as most who own a car won’t be using these instead of.
It would be galling in the extreme to be battling against wind, rain, and cold, whilst the top councillors cruise by you in a huge ‘expenses’ claimed cars.
All you are doing is allowing that ‘sort’ more room on the road, whilst YOU pay the price for it in enduring the elements, AND fund their luxury life style.
According to the Beryl App, there is a Beryl Bay there.
Easier and healthier for local people!
Surely walking is healthier.
I would love to have one but with bigger wheels.
A ridiculous notion that, in our wet, cold, windy, dark, busy roads, ill lit roads that people will be leaving the ‘car’ to travel on this, apart from a few for the novelty value (until it rains) the vegans, hip pies and the louts who likely own no other means of getting around.
In dry, warm, less crowded counties fine, but not here.
NOTHING would be more galling than to poodle along in the wind and cold damp darkness, and seeing a top councillor whizz past you in a luxury expense paid for car, with heated seats, decent sound system, and in comfort and safety whilst you ‘think’ you are doing ‘your bit’.
ALL you are doing is making more room on the road for them and their ilk.
See it how it is, not how you think it should be.
Of course the stats will show the mileage by those messing about on them until they are trashed, and portray it as mileage times the amount a huge gas guzzling car would have polluted the planet with several ‘tons’ of co2, YET most users won’t have been using a car anyway.
What a fool believes.
Quite frankly they are a nuisance, fair enough if they were made just for the key workers to travel to work with but I work in Newport and I see youngsters no older than 13-14 messing around on them which are obviously too young to have a provisional license which your meant to have to even use them, they are a accident waiting to happen Beryl won’t care and are only thinking of £ their making.
From the person’s I have seen riding them around Newport, I would guess from the average age, that they are probably not car owners, so it’s more likely taking people off buses than out of their cars. Next time my granddaughter wants a lift I shall be telling her to speak to Beryl instead. And I shall be out buying a helmet and body armour, not to protect me when riding one, but to to protect me from all the pavement riders, scooters and cyclists.
I saw a kid on a scooter at Pellhurst Road in Ryde on Friday. Not a Beryl hire so I suppose people will just use their own scooters as it’s easy enough to buy one. Obviously no insurance.
Insurance isn’t a requirement, same as a pushbike or skateboard etc.
ye but you just wait till someone gets hurt or dies or causes damage to a car van etc…whos going to liable for all that.
what aload of bollocks just wait till someone gets hurt or killed see if its a good idear then