Clogging the sidewalks, running over people, driving on the sidewalks, creating traffic problems, being a lot of fun… electric kick scooters are accused of a lot of bad things (except that last one, which is just true). Yesterday in Dagens Nyheter, Green Party member and traffic city commissioner Daniel Helldén called for a slew of new regulations to make scooters less wild horse and more dog-on-a-leash ().
First, he suggests, scooters need their own vehicle category in order to more accurately be addressed. Because scooters aren’t pedaled, they’re allowed on the sidewalks as long as they’re going at a walking pace. This creates a lot of irritation on the part of pedestrians. Furthermore, he writes, the city should require scooter companies to apply for a special license to operate on city streets. This would allow the city to regulate scooter numbers, their parking, and even the number of companies renting out scooters. Helldén also suggests increasing the scope and responsibilities of parking enforcement officers to include scooter handling.
Sweden’s police corps agree that juridically, electric scooters get lumped together with bicycles and so have very few regulations.
Although Sweden does love a good regulation, cities the world over have struggled with what to do with this craze/brilliant city transportation method. Here’s a small sample:
- Tokyo. According to DN, scooters in Tokyo have kick stands that apparently fall out automatically, preventing their lying all over the sidewalk. The Asian Review notes that scooters there have license plates, side mirrors, and must drive on the road (s.nikkei.com/AsianReviewScooters).
- Brussels. Scooters in Brussels must park in specific zones or the company has to pay a fine. Unknown if they then pass on this fine to scooterers, but otherwise, not so much regulations. Possibly, they are very popular with lower level EU bureaucrats flying off to different meetings to discuss other regulations.
- São Paulo. Scooter drivers must stay off the sidewalk and must wear a helmet.
- Beijing. Nope, no scooters.
- Moscow. Scooters are limited to 20 km/hour. This after there were some models that went up to 90 km/hour.
- UK. Not legal. Because they are motorised and pedal-less they can’t be used on sidewalks and bike lanes, and because they’re so slow they’re not allowed on the road. Word is, that you won’t get arrested if you’re scootering carefully, but you run a risk ().
- Canada. Toronto is still thinking about allowing them. Montreal has designated parking areas (widely ignored it seems), and you need a helmet. Meanwhile, in Calgary and Edmonton no helmet is required, but their driving differs – in Calgary, it’s allowed to drive on the sidewalk but not on the road, while in Edmonton the opposite is true ().
- Germany. One scooterist was found out on the autobahn, and in Munich there were 900 cases of scootering while drunk (this is verboten) so there are problems a little everywhere and stricter regulations are in the works
- NYC. Are you kidding? No. No scooters. This would be crazy. Bad enough with all the e-mopeds on the sidewalk.
- Madrid. Helmets if you’re under 16, and only on a certain kind of road (and not in roundabouts). Apparently though, Madrid has a tradition of allowing blind people to have stands selling lottery tickets throughout the city. Carelessly parked scooters and people with visual impairments is truly a very bad combination. No wonder that people are in an uproar about it.
The above examples are taken from both DN’s and SvD’s reporting () and ().
It’s a hodgepodge out there. Scooter responsibly.