E-scooter rider fails to convince court driving ban was excessive

Friday 28 June 2024

A man who crashed into a pedestrian on his e-scooter has failed to overturn a judge’s decision to ban him from driving for 18 months.

Toby Woolley, who argued the driving ban was “manifestly excessive”, was sentenced in November to 130 hours community service, banned from driving for 18 months, and ordered to pay £6,000.

The 25-year-old e-scooter rider hit a female pedestrian on Patier Road in St Saviour on the morning of 1 May 2023.

The woman – who was walking her dog at the time – fell to the floor. She felt a sharp pain in her left leg and was unable to move it.  

She recalled that Woolley, who was wearing a motorbike helmet, was thrown up in the air and landed about ten foot down the road.  

The pedestrian called an ambulance.

Woolley initially agreed to wait for help to arrive, but then said "screw the paramedics" and left the scene.

He was found nearby and arrested shortly after. 

After initially denying the charges, Woolley eventually pleaded guilty to illegally using an e-scooter, causing serious injury by riding it carelessly, and failing to report the accident.

He was sentenced to a total of 130 hours of community service, and disqualified from driving for 18 months in the Magistrate's Court at the end of last year.

He was also fined £1,000 and ordered to pay compensation of £5,000 in what was the first case of its kind in Jersey.

But while Woolley did not take issue with the community service, he did seek to challenge the £1,000 fine and the driving ban.

Woolley argued that a driving disqualification was "not appropriate in relation to an e-scooter" because there is no requirement to hold a driving licence or pass a test to drive one.

The appeal was heard in the Royal Court last month, will a full judgment recently made public.

The judgment noted that whilst electric bikes are exempt from the definition of a "motor vehicle", electric scooters remain within this definition.

It explained: "A person who drives a motor vehicle carelessly and thereby causes serious injury to another road user risks finding themselves disqualified from driving not just vehicles of the type that they were driving but all other vehicles."

The judgment described the e-scooter as "clearly capable of causing serious injury".

"The fact that it was a motor vehicle that was not permitted to be driven on a public road is, in our view, hardly a justification for avoiding disqualification," it added.

The Royal Court found that the 18-month driving ban was not “manifestly excessive”, and rejected Woolley's appeal.

The judgment also noted that whilst one of the aims of a driving ban is to remove careless drivers from the road, "there are the further aims of acting as a punishment for the particular offender and as a deterrent to others".

In relation to the £1,000 fine for driving an unregistered motor vehicle, Woolley argued that the e-scooter could not be registered because it was non-compliant. 

However, the judgment noted that if Woolley had made enquiries as to whether an e-scooter needed to be registered for use on the road, he would have been told that it could not be used on a public road. 

"The only doubt on the matter lies in the minds of those who have not enquired," it explained.

The Royal Court concluded: "We do not regard the fine as manifestly excessive given that [Woolley] proceeded to use the e-scooter on a public road despite being unsure whether or not the vehicle was legal."

Commissioner Alan Binnington was presiding, sitting with Jurats Jane Ronge and Michael Entwistle.