Bolt Mobility, an electric scooter sharing company co-founded by speedster and footballer Usain Bolt, has debuted in the UK. There's just one problem: their scooters can't drive in the country. The launch took place at Bolt's Restaurant Tracks and Records in London, where guests were able to test drive scooters in a 2019-foot section on the ground floor. Electric scooters are becoming more prevalent on Britain's streets, but private spaces like this are technically the only places that are allowed by law. Bolt Mobility is already renting scooters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and in May XNUMX expanded to Paris. The Bolt Scooter Rental app will recognize UK users and clearly has all the infrastructure set up to launch the service as soon as possible. However, at launch, it only showed one scooter available in the UK, in a part of Cambridge highlighted in red and alarmingly reported as a "bad area". "I know it's not legal here in London, but that's what we're working on," Bolt said at the launch. "We are here to show you how we can help and raise awareness, to let you know that there is a solution for all traffic."
Not so fast
It takes time for authorities to catch up with the rise of the electric scooter sector. While some cities are opening up to vehicles, others are tightening up, notably Paris, where scooters will be limited to a top speed of 20 km/h (12 mph). July, and prohibited in parks and gardens. "One of the biggest things I've noticed traveling and racing around the world is all this traffic," Bolt said. "I went to Paris, New York, Miami, traveled all over the world, so many cities, and that's always the main problem for me." So when we decided to do this launch it was for me and I don't think so, because I know the timing and what it means to be on time, so it was my pleasure to be a part of this initiative and move forward. " < p class="bordeaux-image-check">
Usain Bolt speaks up at the Bolt Mobility launch in London (Image credit: TechRadar) (Image credit: TechRadar) Unfortunately for Bolt, it will take little more than good intentions to start sharing electric scooters in the UK . The legalization of scooters means a change in high level legislation and the current political situation in the UK (a new transport secretary is still under the table and is likely to be reshuffled by a new prime minister, having to start , and the looming specter of Brexit), is not at the top of the list of things to do.