Maybe it’s time to ban e-scooters in Ireland
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey there, we are Indosport with me, Joe Molloy, and we have things like this. They're sensational, Joe. They really are. And in terms of how good they have been in the knockout stages, when England played against DR Congo, I was watching the game and thinking, God, your midfield is quite advanced and your defence is detached. So there's a big gap between those units. And it was around the time I was watching France and I thought, oh my God, if you come up against France, they're going to dismantle you. No doubt about that in terms of how good they are.
There were, and I think many of you know, a lot of raffles and stories about J. Harley from Barbara. There were a lot of people saying that she was a good girl and that she loved her parents and that she loved her family. There were a lot of raffles about that, a lot of things like that, from the family. And there wasn't much to say about those stories and there wasn't much to say about that. Today's IndoDaily comes courtesy of our sister podcast, The Big Tech Show with Adrian Weckler.
This is an Irish independent podcast. You are listening to The Big Tech Show with Adrian Weckler, sponsored by Deal. Deal lets you hire, manage, pay and equip anyone, anywhere. Visit deel.com slash bigtech. How does a guard actually pursue a scooter? It has clearly been difficult for Gardaí to pursue people either on scrambler bikes or on scooters. I know people sometimes bring the scramblers thing into this conversation and it's not completely separate. And obviously we've banned scramblers now, but there are way, way, way more scooters than there are scramblers.
Totally. And scooters are far more freely available. We can buy one within 200 meters here, I imagine, if we really wanted to.
Hello and you're welcome to The Big Tech Show with me, Adrian Weckler. Now, should e-scooters be banned? What once seemed like a real breakthrough in mobility technology around urban areas may have transmogrified into a category of device whose danger now outweighs its utility. We've seen some shocking figures from Temple Street Hospital, first reported by RTE, revealing that six children in the last three weeks were placed on life support because of e-scooter accidents. And astonishingly, half the kids are in its intensive care in Temple Street are there because of injuries related to e-scooters. So that's one part of the issue. But are there other parts of the story that might mitigate for that?
Well, I'm joined by Noel Rock, a former Fine Gael TD for Dublin West. Noel, you're welcome into the studio. You were once the politician most identified with promoting e-scooters in Ireland. It's many years later now, because the period that you were doing that was 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. What do you think about them now?
Yeah, I think when I was talking about putting regulation and legislation in place for e-scooters, it was with a view to the fact that this was new technology that was clearly going to come on stream on streets in Ireland and indeed across cities. Were they on the streets when you started talking about that? Not really, no. I'd observed them outside of Ireland. They weren't really on the streets at that stage. You bought one, did you? I did. I bought one. I had to get it imported from Spain, so they weren't even buyable here. Was it a Xiaomi? It was, yeah, a Xiaomi M365. Yeah.
And it came from Spain, if memory serves correctly. That was what, 2017 or so? 2017, early 2018. So you would have been one of the first people on, I mean, there were a handful of them on the roads. Yeah, there really were a literal handful of them on the roads. And at this time, were they common in the likes of San Francisco and the US? Yeah, exactly that.
So they were more common in San Francisco. And that's one of the places where I would have observed them in operation. And it was clear that they were cheap, that they were convenient, that they were environmentally friendly by virtue of being electric, and that they were going to inevitably become more popular here.
And there was this dream, because I was really in favor of them around that era.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–8:32
2
Should e-scooters be banned in Ireland after recent Temple Street injuries?
8:32–12:02
3
How did early optimism about e-scooters turn into concern?
12:02–26:01
4
What role did delayed legislation (2018–2024) play in the scooter problem?
26:01–27:14
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Indo Daily
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