E-scooters are seen as part of the solution, as are cycles, including the electronic variants. 

Biking is often held out as the great hope for getting us out of our cars and into a fitter, greener, future.

One question is whether we are capable of accepting, and implementing, a revolution of this scale. But there are bigger imponderables. 

Do we have the rules and regulations which are applicable to this transition? Are our roads even sufficiently adequate for these changes, and what is the cost of transforming them?

On Saturday we commented on the last-minute cancellation, on safety grounds, of a plan to make e-scooters available to racegoers at Cheltenham so they could get back and forth from the centre of the spa town.

Given that it’s not unknown for drink to be taken at the meeting, this was probably a wise precaution.

That there are risks to local authorities in this nascent expansion of higher intensity personal transport is underlined by a case which has been launched in Ireland’s High Courtwhich is believed to be one of the first personal injury claims in relation to an electric bike accident.

Dublin City Council is being sued in a multimillion-euro claim by a man who says he suffered life-changing injuries when travelling along a city-centre cycle lane. 

The man, who cannot be identified by court order, was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident three years ago. 

The case is due to be heard in May. All claims are denied, and full defences have been filed. The council, the cycle lane designer, and the construction company have all been joined in the action.

It is a benefit to society if more people prove willing to forsake four wheels and the internal combustion engine for less environmentally damaging alternatives. 

Are we ready to integrate new rules of the road and establish a common set of well-understood parameters for the future? Multi-million pound compensation claims may be one way that thinking
becomes crystallised. But much more than that is needed.