The Victoria e-scooter trials are still underway (for shared or hired e-scooters) and they’ve actually been extended for another 6 months starting from 5 April 2023. Previously, you could only ride these shared or hired e-scooters in Victoria and if you own an e-scooter of your own, you are out of luck. The penalty of riding a privately owned e-scooters was very heavy here in Victoria as you can both get fined and lose demerit points of your driving licence!
So if you’ve bought an e-scooter from shops around Australia, you might as well throw them into a storage room or shed while waiting for the final judgement.
Thankfully, as of 5 April 2023, this is no longer the case as you can now use and ride your privately owned e-scooters on Victorian roads.
Victoria e-scooter rules update (5 April 2023)
From the official page of Vic Roads, you can now legally e-ride your privately owned e-scooters under some conditions such as:
- Your e-scooter must not have maximum speed more than 25km/h (i.e not a high-powered e-scooter). Previously, Vic Roads even had a power output limit but looks like it’s been removed? As long as your e-scooter can’t do more than 25km/h, it should be fine.
- You can only ride with a maximum speed of up to 20km/h.
- You can’t ride on footpaths.
- You can ride on shared-use paths and roads up to and including 60km/h (so don’t try going into an 80km/h freeway).
More Victoria e-scooter rules rules can be viewed at Vic Roads website but they are pretty standard.
While owners of privately owned e-scooters should celebrate in joy with the updated Victoria e-scooter rules, you should not. According to Vic Roads, they will monitor how hire and private e-scooters are being used over the next six months. So, bad things and strict rules can still happen in the future.I
If you are looking for an e-scooter, you can also check my reviews on Reid E4 Plus, ROBOGO Rapid, Unagi Model One E350, and Segway-Ninebot F40A.
