Figures show police called out 154 times to 'motorised vehicle related incidents'
Police have been called to 154 incidents involving mobility scooters in the last five years.
Officers with North Wales Police have attended everything from collisions, burglaries and assaults to people driving the motorised vehicles while drunk.
Seven people have been charged as a result of a mobility scooter-related incident.
Some 40 cases are still undetected and 67 were deemed not a crime or an incident later on, figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show.
In 2014, police attended 46 incidents compared to 18 in 2011, 28 in 2012, 40 in 2013 and 22 in 2015.
They included antisocial behaviour, criminal damage, robbery and collisions causing damage and slight and serious injury.
One of the crashes resulted in a death in the last five years. No mobility scooters were seized by police during that period.
Figures have not yet been released for 2016, but in September, Isabel Brownson died after falling from her mobility scooter when it lost a wheel on Church Road, Rhos on Sea.
The 87-year-old “happy and caring” great-grandmother was found next to her overturned vehicle by a member of the public.
She was taken to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd by ambulance but despite efforts from paramedics, she was pronounced dead.
A post-mortem carried out by Dr Mark Atkinson gave a provisional cause of death as “head trauma”.
Her full inquest is expected to be held in March 2017.
In November, we reported how a 74-year-old was slapped with a ticket for doing 42mph on his 8mph scooter in a speeding fine blunder.
James Roberts said he “thought it was a joke” when he was sent a notice of intended prosecution from North Wales Police.
The letter, which gave the details and registration number of the pensioner’s motorised ‘Rascal’ vehicle, suggested he had been travelling at 42mph on the 30mph A5151 London Road in Trelawnyd, Flintshire at 9.18pm on November 12.
But the grandfather-of-one from Abergele has been laid up at home for the last six weeks having undergone triple heart surgery.
Go Safe, the organisation who issued the ticket on behalf of the force later admitted they had made a mistake and apologised.
Back in 2011, a three-year-old boy broke his leg after being run over by a pensioner on a mobility scooter in a hit-and-run.
Little Charlie Wilson’s shin bones snapped in two places when the electric vehicle knocked him off his feet and then wheeled over him as he walked along the pavement on Wellington Road, Rhyl.
Charlie’s shin bone was broken in two places. His leg was put into a cast and he was kept in hospital overnight.
At the time, police launched an appeal to trace the rider of the scooter who left the scene.
No further action was ever taken.
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/mobility-scooters-involved-collisions-assaults-12349965
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