Áilín Quinlan: Tighten e-scooter rules, and if that doesn’t work - ban them

At the end of the day, this is about taking responsibility.

So let’s stop all the begging and pleading with parents who insist on buying e-scooters for their children.

Let’s stop making excuses for the poor mammies and daddies who “don’t know” that e-scooters are banned for under-16s or who claim they’re “unaware” of the dangers these vehicles pose either for their children or for the unfortunate pedestrians and motorists they too often terrorise.

Let’s just bite the bullet and make some decisions here.

Such as whether Ireland needs to ban these vehicles outright or whether it would be more sensible to fast-track effective legislation governing the use and purchase of e-scooters, with impressive penalties for those who break the law.

If we opt for the latter option, we will have to decide on a sensible and reasonable age for people who are allowed to drive an e-scooter – say 18 years and up?

Because the current situation – where they are only legal for use by those aged 16 or over - isn’t working.

Once that’s decided, we need to introduce tough legislation which makes it very clear from what age they can be driven, and which lays out steep fines, both for parents whose children are driving them and for shops who sell them for use by young people under the legislated age.

The legislation should also impose restrictions on where they may be used; getting them away from places where they pose a menace, such as playgrounds or public parks.

It must regulate licensing, tax, and insurance around these vehicles and make sure they carry a clearly recognisable licence plate with stiff penalties for anyone who breaks the rules.

Then we need an all-hands-on Garda crackdown on these bloody things.

Gardaí already have the power to seize e-scooters from underage drivers, and parents can face prosecution for allowing underage children to ride them.

But is it happening?

We must enforce, enforce, enforce, enforce, until parents give up and stop buying them for their children and children stop using them.

And if all of that doesn’t work, ban the things.

Just ban them.

Six children in the last three or four weeks were placed on life support in Temple Street Hospital in Dublin as a result of e-scooter accidents.

At one stage, half the children in intensive care there were in because of e-scooter-related injuries.

Doctors have described the number of brain injuries in children as a result of e-scooter accidents as an “epidemic”.

One consultant has warned that e-scooters represent a primary cause of head trauma to children in recent years.

I would imagine that, given the prospect of having to fork out a good heavy fine, parents will become very cognisant both of the fact that these vehicles are banned to young people under a certain age, and the dangers they can pose, not just to those driving these vehicles, but the unfortunate pedestrians and drivers who have to endure the often risky behaviour of people driving e-scooters.

It’s a nightmare. They’re bombing down pavements, whipping out in front of cars at traffic lights with two or more on board, overtaking buses, and engaging in anti-social behaviour. They are also going at speeds far higher than the maximum of 20km/h.

Injuries to kids are off the charts. But, let’s not forget, it’s not only kids who are misbehaving with these vehicles.

Plenty of adults are riding them down pavements - which is illegal - and engaging in absolutely appalling behaviour on the roads.

We really may indeed end up eventually having to ban e-scooters.

And somebody will have to decide. As in, making an actual, enforceable decision, and carrying that decision through. And taking responsibility for that decision.

Because people not taking responsibility is a big problem in this country now.

Refusing to take responsibility is endemic in our society. It’s not just parents who fail to take responsibility for their children.

Anyone notice the growing number of reports about drivers who knock down a pedestrian or cyclist, then dodge their responsibility to remain at the scene of an accident and flee, leaving them lying injured on the road?

Responsibility is the last thing on the minds of some of the entitled cyclists who think nothing of riding bikes down pavements, sometimes even wearing protective helmets for their own safety – and they will argue with or ignore any pedestrian who tries to protest.

It’s the same with the people who flock to our lovely beaches on hot days and then get up and go home, leaving the beautiful strands coated in a disgusting layer of their discarded cans, bottles, leftover food, food wrappers, broken glass, and dirty nappies.

Think of the disgusting condition in which sun worshippers left the beach of Salthill a few weeks ago, or indeed, Loughbeg beach, where visitors left everything from a broken glass bottle buried in the sand (if you can believe that) to used barbecues.

People throwing their fast-food wrappers out of their cars.

People tailgating other motorists - motorists who are obeying speed limits - by refusing to accept their personal responsibility to engage in safe driving behaviour.

Instead, they roar up behind speed-limit compliant motorists trying to intimidate them into going faster.

Not far from where I live, people put a lot of time, effort, and money into creating a lovely leafy communal seating area. It has a wooden bench beneath a large and shady tree. It is brightened by specially planted summer flowers and painted vintage farm machinery.

Last week, during the hot spell, I was out walking very early each morning on a route which took me past this pretty bower.

On Saturday morning, I noticed that the previous evening some people had relaxed on the bench in this pretty little alcove to enjoy the balmy summer air.

How did I know? They left behind a half-empty water bottle and two sizable, empty, plastic containers of what appears to have been chocolate and vanilla ice-cream, complete with used napkins and sticky wooden spoons.

Left them there for somebody else to clean up.

For God’s sake.

I got a plastic bag from the car and threw them into it and them put them in the bin at home.

What are we like?