Alison thought it was safe to cross the road in Coventry on a sunny day last year. Then a private e-scooter slammed into her, leaving her with a broken pelvis, wrist and finger, cuts and bruises. “It was instant pain, you know when the TV does grey static? That’s what my eyes were doing,” she said. The rider, 47-year-old Trevor Chandler, broke his leg but fled the scene. He was later jailed for 15 months and his vehicle destroyed.
Alison, not her real name, is among hundreds of people injured by micromobility vehicles – e-scooters, e-bikes, mobility scooters and e-unicycles – whose compensation claims have now topped £110m, the BBC has learned. The first claim was made just seven years ago, and the biggest individual payout so far is £20m. In 2025 alone, there were 168 claims for accidents involving both e-scooters and e-bikes, the highest figure to date.
“E-scooter and e-bike injury payouts have reached £110m in seven years, pushing up insurance premiums.”
The Motor Insurers Bureau (MIB), the not-for-profit organisation that settles such claims, says the cost has been a major contributor to rising annual insurance premiums for ordinary drivers. Insurers pay a levy to the MIB, which passes the bill on to everyone paying motor insurance. The MIB is now calling for better regulation of these vehicles and, in some cases, a ban on their sale.
Privately owned e-scooters are already illegal on public roads and can only be used on private land with the owner’s permission. Official e-scooter trials are under way in some towns and cities, but only vehicles supplied by operators can be ridden in those areas. Police regularly seize and destroy hundreds of illegal e-scooters and e-bikes that have been adapted to exceed 15.5mph, the legal speed limit for electric assistance.
The first MIB payout for an e-scooter injury came in 2019; for an e-bike, in 2020. As the number of micromobility vehicles on UK streets grows, so does the hazard they pose to pedestrians – and the cost to every driver’s premium.