BBC Morning Live has broadcast a report highlighting the stigma, hostility and daily struggles faced by mobility scooter users across the UK.

The feature, which aired on 30 September, followed a collaboration between the BBC, Surewise, Sharon Hilton from the Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership, and Professor Duncan Guest of Nottingham Trent University. 

In the programme, mobility scooter users Dean Brook and Andrea Hill spoke openly about the barriers they face when trying to live independently. Sharon Hilton also spoke in memory of her best friend Dawn, a mobility scooter user and campaigner who died last year, but had been determined to see mobility scooter users treated with dignity, empathy and respect.

This issue will also be raised at the upcoming National Road Safety Conference 2025 next month.

Morning Live has an average weekly audience of 1.5 million viewers, giving the issue a significant national platform.

The programme was prompted by the Safer Mobility Campaign, launched by Surewise in April 2024, which has highlighted rising casualties, inadequate infrastructure and widespread social stigma affecting mobility scooter users.

Richard Hannan, director of Surewise, said: “To see this issue spoken about so honestly, in such a carefully presented and sensitive way, was wonderful for us. We care deeply about the safety and well-being of mobility scooter users and were horrified to learn of how much verbal and even physical abuse they receive just for trying to live an independent life.

“To hear the presenters – well-respected, household names – present this issue to so many people, and concur that this situation is shocking, urging viewers to ‘take note’, was incredibly powerful. 

“We are incredibly grateful to Dean, Andrea and Sharon for telling their stories so openly, so articulately and with such courage. Their voices have made it impossible to ignore the reality of what many mobility scooter users face every single day.”

Viewers heard how Dean is routinely forced to justify his disability to strangers, Andrea is verbally abused on the roads, and many users face blocked pavements, dangers at crossings and frequent judgment.

According to professor Guest, who is currently carrying out a research project to improve safety for users of MMDs (motorised mobility devices), stigma is now one of the greatest threats to mobility scooter users’ wellbeing – on a par with the physical risks of unsafe roads.

Professor Guest’s research, funded by The Road Safety Trust, will develop a ‘near miss’ app for MMD users to log near miss situations, with the ultimate goal of creating new safety guidance to be disseminated to MMD users and throughout the industry.

The programme ended with a message from Dean and Andrea.

Dean said: “We don’t use [mobility scooters] because we’re lazy or we can’t be bothered to walk. We use it because we have to. So please just have a bit of respect for people.”

Andrea added: “Drivers have to understand the road is not just theirs. There are so many different types of people using the road and we all deserve to be there. The abuse has to stop. 100% it has to stop.”