Ministers are being urged to ban sales of electric scooters until it becomes legal to ride them on the roads.
Simon Foster, Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands, has written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warning of more deaths and serious injuries without a crackdown.
In his letter, seen by the Mail, he brands the contraptions 'a menace' and says they are increasingly becoming a drain on police resources.
Privately-owned e-scooters are illegal to ride on the roads.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps (pictured) has been urged to ban sales of private electric scooters until it is legal for them to be used on roads
Yet retailers are selling them in record numbers with few questions asked and are even promoting them as a convenient way of getting around.
It means police are left pulling over hundreds of riders to explain the law and potentially arresting them for driving a motor vehicle without insurance or a licence.
Mr Foster said West Midlands Police force has alone recorded more than 400 incidents in recent years.
Many of these involved young thugs riding dangerously, such as on the pavement, or using e-scooters to commit crimes.
One man, Shakur Amoy Pinnock, 20, died of