On Sunday, a vote to allow or forbid the rental of electric scooters in Paris was conducted at the city level. Even though only 8% of eligible voters actually cast ballots, nearly 90% of respondents chose to impose the ban.
E-scooters can be a sustainable form of transportation for some people when traveling short distances. However, there are also several problems with these scooters. According to Reuters, they can be risky due to an increase in crashes and 24 fatalities linked to e-scooters in 2021. David Belliard, the Paris deputy for transportation, pointed out that there have been hundreds of additional non-fatal accidents involving rented e-scooters.
In particular for the most vulnerable individuals—I’m thinking about elderly or disabled people—the scooters foster a sense of general uneasiness in the public area, Belliard told The Associated Press. There are a few advantages, but from what I can see right now, the costs are higher.
The vote was launched in January by Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, who also declared her desire to outlaw e-scooters.
According to Hidalgo, the e-scooter industry is quite expensive—five euros ($4.40; $5.40) for ten minutes—not particularly viable, and, most importantly, a major contributor to accidents.
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Only rental electric scooters will be subject to the restriction; privately owned scooters will not.
According to The BBC: Paris was one of the first places to introduce e-scooters. But, the safety of both the riders and pedestrians was put at risk by inexperienced users and visitors who were unfamiliar with local traffic regulations and drove dangerously fast across streets and sidewalks.
E-scooter users in Paris and elsewhere have also come under fire for improperly parking their vehicles, which results in obstructions on sidewalks and other walking areas. Despite the city’s ban and fines on parking scooters on sidewalks, many users nevertheless returned rental scooters inappropriately after using them.
E-scooters are also littered by some users. After finding scooters dumped into rivers, residents of Paris’ Swans Island gave it the moniker “Scooters Island,” according to Euronews.
Local magnet fisher Raphael told Euronews that over around three years, we had removed at least 170. I’m not sure what they want to do with them, but I don’t understand the purpose of plunging them into the ocean.
While producing fewer emissions than vehicles, e-scooters emit more emissions per passenger mile than other forms of transportation, such as diesel buses (which carry a lot of people), cycles or e-bikes, or walking.
Critics countered that for those who don’t live close to a metro stop, the rental e-scooters can offer more accessible, sustainable transportation options. The e-scooters can be a safer option for people who need to travel late at night, according to Garance Lef vre, director of public policy for the e-scooter business Lime.
Licenses for three rental e-scooter businesses, Lime, Dott, and Tier, are in effect in the city but are set to expire in August. E-scooters will be prohibited starting on September 1. Instead of going ahead with the outright ban, the rental businesses for e-scooters indicated an interest in collaborating with the city to establish stronger rules on the vehicles.