A mobility scooter is more than a means of transportation, but is often a vital lifeline that allows people who have difficulties getting around to live an independent life and do everything that they want to.
From the earliest makeshift mobility tricycle made by Stephan Farffler, mobility scooters have consistently advanced, evolved and adapted, leading to the incredibly wide range of vehicles available today to meet a wide range of mobility needs.
Whilst so many aspects of their design and components are incredibly different, one similarity that they all share is how fast they go; by law, all mobility scooters are limited to four miles per hour on pavements, with road-going scooters able to go as fast as eight miles per hour on the road.
This is enforced through a speed limiter that helps to maintain safe operation speed around pedestrians, but one question that we are often asked is why.
Why is there a speed limit for mobility scooters, and why is it set at 4 mph for pavements and in stores and 8 mph whilst on the road?
To understand this, it is important to understand the modern history of mobility scooters, as they help to shed some light on the mobility world as it exists today.
Why Is There A Speed Limit For Mobility Scooters?
The laws surrounding mobility scooters, powered wheelchairs and other similar devices are currently regulated by The Use Of Invalid Carriages On Highways Regulations 1988, which includes the different legal classes of scooters, required dimensions, equipment and other specifics.
This, alongside other guidance and regulations, helps to ensure that they can move fast enough to be practical and useful, but will also not travel so fast that they could potentially get out of control and cause an accident, particularly in a busy pedestrianised area.
For the most part, the speed limit is primarily enforced as a feature of the scooter itself; as recent stories such as one published by the BBC in June demonstrated, there are no speed cameras to detect the speed of mobility scooters, but instead an expectation to drive them safely and considerately.
When Was The Speed Limit Adhered To Today Set?
Before the laws surrounding mobility scooters took a recognisable shape, there were arguably too many different mobility aids for a consistent set of laws to regulate them effectively.
From the late 1940s up until the debut of the Motability scheme in 1977, the ancestor of the mobility scooter on the road was the Invacar.
Unlike mobility scooters, which do not need a driving license to operate, the Invacar was effectively a small car, regulated as such and had the performance as such; the stated top speed of the baby blue car was ten times that (82 mph) of a road-going Class 3 scooter.
Ultimately, the Invacar was discontinued in the late 1970s, although several users continued to drive them until 2003, when they were deemed no longer road-legal.
Meanwhile, powered wheelchairs and the growing popularity of mobility scooters fell between the cracks of regulation, because they were vehicles that could go on the road and did go on the pavement, but they were not a traditional class of vehicle.
The final straw, and the vehicle that led to a lot of changes in regulations, was the Sinclair C5.
Whilst not a mobility scooter but officially an electric bicycle, the infamous C5 was a small electric trike that exposed many of the potential concerns and dangers of vehicles that were not cars and sat lower than them on the road.
It exploited a loophole that allowed any vehicle that met the standards of an “electrically assisted pedal cycle” that had pedals to be driven on the road without tax, insurance, license or even a helmet, with a top speed of 15 mph.
It was a massive commercial failure for unrelated reasons, but it also led to a change in the rules that required an e-bike to only reach its top speed through the use of its pedals, and more stringent rules surrounding the use of other small electric vehicles such as mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs.
Why Is The Speed Limit Set At 4 MPH?
Since 1988, the speed limit for Class 2 mobility scooters has been set at 4 mph, but the laws and rules surrounding personal mobility aids were not entirely clear, and there are a few reasons why the 4 mph speed limit (8 mph on the road) was ultimately chosen.
The first is that it is similar to the average walking pace of a pedestrian. According to the British Heart Foundation, people walk at an average speed of 4 mph, although other studies have suggested slightly slower average speeds, and it can vary considerably based on age and terrain factors.
By keeping the speed limit in built-up areas similar, it is easier for scooters and pedestrians to travel around each other without causing any issues, and would have been considered a standing walking speed when the limits were first devised in 1988.
However, there might also be another reason related to one of the first-ever modern mobility scooters. The Amigo Shopper, first sold in 1968 and widely produced by 1970, had a top speed of 4 mph at first, which likely influenced other, similar machines.
The Highway Code and UK road legislation have often based their guidelines and speed limits around one popular model. The 70 mph top speed on motorways and the stopping distance calculations were allegedly based on the Ford Cortina, one of the most popular cars ever sold in the UK.
It stands to reason that a popular early model with certain natural limitations would influence the legal limits for other vehicles, and there is a possibility that the Amigo Shopper or a mobility scooter inspired by it was the template that the legislators followed in the future.
Since then, every mobility scooter has been designed around these legal limitations, focusing on providing the most stable, affordable, versatile and easy-to-use mobility scooters within the parameters of the specifications and that meet the needs of everyone.
