Letter to the editor......

I am contacting you with a degree of concern, having witnessed a very close call in Skipton last week at the Keighley Road/Carleton Road junction. I don’t want to appear a killjoy or a grumpy old man, but as a local driving instructor I would like to see our roads, streets and pavements kept safe and statistic free.

I was horrified, but not surprised, not only by the sheer numbness of the youth on the e-scooter but by the idiocy of the parents who bought them the device in the first place and then allowed them out in the dark, with no lighting and wearing only dark clothing.

I must admit that the quality of my dashcam video is exceptional and shows the scene to be much lighter than was evident on the evening in question however, I can assure you that it was a very dark, gloomy, wet night and neither I nor the driver to my left had any idea that the scooter was there until the last second. Only their quick reactions prevented a serious injury taking place as the rider passed in front of us both.

Not only are these scooters illegal (outside of any council controlled scheme, for example London, York and Liverpool), the police have powers to seize unlicensed e-scooters. And, for crying out loud, if you have any love for your children please don’t let them use them at night!

Rant over I guess, but I just don’t want to see any accidents or fatalities due to such a preventable and avoidable ignorance on our busy roads.

Andrew Wroot

Wroot1 Driving School

Skipton