Transport

E-scooters

E-scooters are almost silent, which means that people with sight loss have little or no warning that they are approaching. Even a near miss with an e-scooter can rob people with vision impairment of the confidence to go out independently.  

A YouGov survey for Guide Dogs found that half the people who had come across e-scooters saw them driven unsafely. Even though it’s against the law, most e-scooters are being used on the pavement, where they are most likely to come into conflict with pedestrians.  

We are working with the UK Government and companies running the trials to talk about the impact of e-scooters on sight loss. We’re also continuing to call for the law as it stands to be enforced to tackle illegal use of e-scooters. 

In May 2022 we published our response to the Department for Transport’s evaluation on e-scooters. The UK Government has recently announced they intend to expand the legal use of e-scooters. Once more detail is available on these plans, we will update our report and recommendations. 

Safe and Sound

Quiet electric and hybrid vehicles are hard to hear as they make less sound than conventional cars. As the number of quiet vehicles on our roads continues to increase, the risk to pedestrians living with sight loss is growing because many rely on being able to hear a car to cross the road safely. 

Guide Dogs has been working with the Royal Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the World Blind Union (WBU) to ensure that our concerns about the dangers that electric and hybrid cars pose to pedestrians with sight loss are exposed.

We believe that all quiet cars should be fitted with a sound generator, and this should be switched on.

Talking Buses – a winning campaign!

For many people with sight loss, bus travel is difficult or near impossible due to a lack of audio next stop announcements. We were delighted when, in March 2023, the Department for Transport introduced measures that will see almost all buses in Great Britain fitted with audio-visual announcements by the end of 2026. 

Guide Dogs led the campaign for AV announcements through our long-running Talking Buses campaign. The campaign harnessed the support of tens of thousands of campaigners to help enlist MPs and Peers to change government policy.