Police officer and e-scooter rider injured in crash outside Buckingham Palace

A police officer and an e-scooter rider were taken to a major trauma centre after a crash outside Buckingham Palace, turning one of London’s most visible ceremonial spaces into the scene of another street-level safety failure.

The collision happened outside the palace gates in Westminster, near Constitution Hill, and the area was cordoned off after the crash. Medical bags, a discarded police hat and a black e-scooter were left strewn across the road in the aftermath, underscoring how quickly a routine-looking ride can become a serious trauma call in the middle of central London.

The incident lands in the middle of a broader enforcement problem that has dogged dense urban cores across the capital. The Metropolitan Police says privately owned e-scooters are illegal to use on public roads and in public spaces in the UK because they cannot be insured, and that serious harm caused by an e-scooter is investigated in the same way as if someone were riding a motorcycle or driving a car.

The collision also fits a wider road-safety pattern. UK Department for Transport figures show 1,312 reported collisions involving e-scooters in Great Britain in 2024, leading to 1,390 casualties and six deaths. Those numbers have kept pressure on city authorities as they try to balance convenience, tourism and congestion relief against the risks created when electric scooters are used where pedestrians, police and ceremonial traffic already compete for space.

London has also seen stepped-up police action against illegal e-bikes and e-scooters. A Metropolitan Police crackdown has led to thousands of seizures across the capital, part of a harder line that reflects the scale of the problem and the difficulty of enforcing rules in crowded streets where fast-moving micro-mobility devices can appear and disappear in seconds.

Outside Buckingham Palace, the consequences were immediate and visible: a police officer injured, a rider injured, and a stretch of central London briefly shut down around one of the city’s most heavily watched gates.