About Mobility Scooters

Mobility scooters may seem a very simple and easy to use form of transport.

Many organisations supply them without any advice to the user on the assumption that riding them is fairly straightforward. However, mobility scooters can cause serious damage and injury to the user and to other people.

If you are using a mobility scooter for the first time, or if it’s a while since you have driven on the road, we strongly advise you to go on a training course.

You are responsible for your own and other people’s safety.

There are three types of ‘invalid carriage’ defined in ‘The Use of Invalid Carriages on Highways Regulations 1988’.

• Class 1 – manual wheelchairs. You use your arms to move them, or you are pushed.
• Class 2 – powered wheelchairs and scooters. These are only suit able for riding on pavements or footpaths, and have a top speed of 4 m.p.h./6 km/h.
• Class 3 – powered wheelchairs and other outdoor powered vehicles, including scooters. These are suitable for riding on roads, and have a top speed of 8 m.p.h./12 kmh and must not weigh more than 150 kilograms without driver and load. These also have a switch to limit the top speed to 4 m.p.h./6 kmh, the maximum permitted, on pavements or footpaths.

A Class 3 vehicle is not legally defined as a motor vehicle and the user does not have to have a driving licence or take a driving test. However, a Class 3 vehicle can only be used by a disabled person aged 14-or-over, or by an able-bodied person who is demonstrating one before selling it, training a disabled user, or taking a vehicle to or from a place for maintenance or repair