When you purchase a mobility scooter, you should receive some basic guidance on using it and the types of outdoor surfaces that are suitable to use it on, either by the retailer, documentation that comes with your mobility scooter or from a combination of both.

If you have purchased a class 3 mobility scooter then you will know that you can take this type actually on the road and of course that the other types, that are not class 3, need to be kept off of the roads, apart from when you are crossing a road.

Generally, most users will be keeping to pavements, occasional road use and areas like outdoor shopping parades and indoor shopping centres.

These are usually areas that will have a suitable surface that enables the tires of your mobility scooter to grip well and there generally won’t be too much on these surfaces that could be picked up by the tires that would possibly make them slippery.

Sometimes you might want to take your mobility scooter across an outdoor surface that may not be where you would normally take it but it may be perfectly ok to do so, especially if the weather is not damp or the surface is not ice covered, for example in the fairer weather you might take your mobility scooter across and onto some grass, and this should be fine if the grass is not especially long and that it is not on a slope that could place you in a dangerous situation.

A gravel-covered surface may be fine to use your mobility scooter on too, as long as the gravel is not too loose as this could cause your mobility scooter to struggle with grip and you could find that steering across a surface like this is more difficult if the gravel is shifting too much.

A dry sand covered area would in most cases be a bad idea, and would most likely lead to various problems with your mobility scooter and potential damage to it.

Wet compacted sand, like when the sand is wet on a beach near the edge of the water might be suitable to drive over as a surface, if there appears to be no sign of sinking but of course to reach that type or sand surface there will usually be dry loose sand before that, which may prevent you from reaching the wet and possibly better supporting sand on a beach.

If you are tempted to cross any surface, maybe even for a short cut and you see that it might cause you problems, then it’s really best avoided, a grassed area could look ok but if there has been recent rain then it could be muddy and the last thing that you need is getting bogged down in mud while halfway across a field or an area in a park or something.

Also one more thing to consider regarding surfaces is when you take your mobility scooter from the outdoors inside and if the ground is wet from rain, as it will take a few minutes for the tires to dry off, say if you have entered an indoor shopping area, as the floors in some of these could be slippy and dangerous when wet, this could cause the tires to slip a little and you don’t want to take any risks in an area with potentially so many people.

So it’s safest to keep the speed down and be as cautious as possible while the tires are still drying off, in a shopping centre it’s a good idea to keep your speed down anyway but even more so while there’s an increased risk of an accident from wet tires on an indoor surface.