Here in the U.K. scooters are only legal in specific trial areas and when hired from a company (normally one per city), which vets that the hirer has a driving

Here in the U.K. scooters are only legal in specific trial areas and when hired from a company (normally one per city), which vets that the hirer has a driving license, and this ensures the person is riding them with insurance. But there are lots of people using privately owned e-scooters illegally - I live not far outside a trial area and regularly see people on them. This is despite a risk of large fines or even losing your driving license (most people need 12 penalty points to be banned from driving and being caught on one of these is 6 points). I would be interested to see how profitable these startups are in the face of competition in this direction, because it looks like here there’ll be a liberalisation of the rules at some point. For e.g. I know a couple of people who commute on them, but it would seem to me to make sense for them to just buy one and charge it at home/work if it was legal.