The EU Is Pushing For Stricter E-Scooter Safety Standards

For many people around the world, electric scooters and other small e-mobility devices have changed their lives. Moving around the city has never been this easy. Simply charge up your little scoot, throw on your going-out clothes and maybe a backpack, and be on your merry way. No more queueing up at a bus stop or dealing with apps like Uber or Lyft.

But as is always the case when it comes to all things mobility, a balance between safety and convenience always has to be struck.

Up until now, rules and regulations surrounding the use of e-scooters have been inconsistent and confusing at best. This is where the ETSC, or the European Transport Safety Council steps in, as it now calls for the development of mandatory requirements for all e-scooters sold in the European Union.

It’s about damn time, isn’t it?

It all seems pretty reasonable, really, and it’s surprising that the EU is adopting these measures only now, especially given that so many e-scooter-based ride-sharing platforms have been banned across Europe due to safety concerns.

So, what are the technical requirements? Well, for starters, all e-scooters should include a speed limiter set at 20 kilometers per hour (around 12.4 miles per hour). Minimum braking and maximum acceleration parameters will also be set. So yeah, no more “super e-scooters” capable of hitting speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour.

But apart from mandating technical requirements surrounding scooters, the ETSC also recommends regulating folks who can actually ride them. For starters, the council recommends a minimum age of 16 for e-scooter riders. Plus, riders will also be required to wear a helmet every time they hop aboard an e-scooter. Naturally, individuals who have consumed alcohol or are under the influence of drugs, will not be allowed to ride.

All these regulations make sense, right? And there are numbers to back them all up. The ETSC highlights that there have been 119 reported road deaths in 2022, all of which involve “motorized micro-mobility devices,” of which the vast majority are electric scooters. And the fact that between half and two-thirds of the reported deaths involved riders who were intoxicated makes this even more grim.

So yeah, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, I guess.

But things might actually be much worse than they seem. The ETSC reports that many crashes and injuries involving e-scooters involve only the rider, and no one else. As such, it’s more than likely that the number of e-scooter fatalities is actually much higher, it’s just that there are lots of unreported cases as the police may not necessarily have been called to the scene.