City of Greater Geraldton votes to extend Beam’s e-scooter licence for six months, while opening EOI period

E-scooters for hire are here to stay in Geraldton, with the existing company granted a six-month licence extension while the council opens the door to other businesses and finalises a new safety regime. Greater Geraldton councillors voted 8-1 to extend Beam Mobility’s contract for six months at its Tuesday’s council meeting. During that six-month period, the council will call for expressions of interest from other erideable hire companies. Any future deal will come with a raft of new safety rules the council will vote on. A nine-point list of draft recommendations from city CEO Ross McKim includes a ban on e-scooters between midnight and dawn, a lower maximum speed of 20km/h, a sobriety test every night after 8pm and cutting the number of e-scooters from 350 to 250. It has also been suggested to charge the operator a fee of $1 a day per e-scooter to go towards public education and infrastructure and have community volunteers report poor user behaviour to the hire company. At Tuesday’s council meeting, there was limited debate and no changes made to the motion, which was passed 8-1. Public debate around the safety of e-scooters and future of the rental service has ramped up in the wake of the Christmas Eve death of a 37-year-old man who fell off a Beam e-scooter on a footpath on Brand Highway in Tarcoola Beach. Mayor Jerry Clune said the council was not influenced in its approach by the recent fatality, adding a big part of the responsibility had to be placed on the user. “What we’ve seen is an explosion in the number of e-rideables, not only the hired ones but the private ones as well . . . people vote with their feet because they’re jumping on and using them in good numbers,” he said. “As far as trauma on the roadsides, I think you’ve got to take it into context with every other use of the road, like pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles. There’s all stories that don’t have happy endings.” “But because we have a little bit more control of e-rideables then we are certainly hoping that we can lift the (safety) standard up. “There’s some brutes of things running around the community at the moment (private e-scooters) . . . you don’t even need a licence to be operating on these. So we do need that legislation to come in.” The State Government is yet to deliver its response to a parliamentary inquiry into e-rideables, which made 33 recommendations, in the wake of a series of fatalities and injuries. The council is calling on the State Government to finalise it decision as soon as possible. “The (e-scooter) technology has come in too quick for the legislation . . . we’ve offered some suggestions to the State Government. I don’t know whether they always listen to us, but we never stop lobbying,” Mr Clune said. The mayor said the council had met with Beam and they were “quite receptive” to some of the suggested changes. “The city was one of the first local governments to actually put out e-rideables to hire, so we’ve learnt a few lessons along the way and we’re probably a little bit better informed coming up to the next time we let a contract out,” he said. “We’re all in a learning game with it and they’re (Beam) keen to not tarnish their reputation with people using them. “They do have a little bit of control about speed zones and where they can go and can’t go. They are keen to improve their image as well, we are working with them at the present moment to see what they can do.” The agreement between the council and Beam allows Beam’s e-scooters to be used and parked on council land. Mr Clune said lack of helmet use and the unsightly dumping of e-scooters were big concerns, which the council was keen to discuss with Beam or future operators on ways to improve. “Sometimes they use the excuse of the helmet wasn’t there or I’m going to get head lice or the world’s going to fall off. But you know your head is an important part of your body and everything runs from there,” he said. Mr Clune said rewards or incentives for users who park the e-scooters correctly could be an option worth exploring. Under the motion passed at Tuesday’s council meeting, shortlisted applicants will present to the council at a future concept forum while the CEO will write to the State Government encouraging them to reach a decision post-inquiry. Cr Shane Van Styn said e-scooters were “wildly popular” and “here to stay”, but now was not the time to “dwell on specifics” because there would be a lot of future opportunities to debate the details. Cr Peter Fiorenza said much of the negative commentary on social media and in the media recently could be put down to a “kneejerk reaction”. He also said the council was hamstrung by the State Government’s “negligence” in not moving forward with legislation already. Cr Tim Milnes was the only councillor to vote against extending Beam’s licence, believing doing so exposed the council to “unnecessary risk”. He said the venture provided “no direct financial benefit” to the council, also noting the impact the rise in e-scooters was having on presentation to hospital emergency departments. Beam has been operating in Geraldton since September 2022. A Beam spokesperson said more than 35,000 people had used its service in Geraldton, travelling close to one million kilometres across 400,000 trips. That equates to an average of about 2500 trips a week, covering about 5500km. The spokesperson said more than “99.9 per cent of trips start and end safely and without incident”. The company has banned about 165 users in Geraldton under its three-strikes policy.