Ban on rental e-scooters in Paris from September , first European capital to impose a complete ban

Electric scooters accessed through smartphone apps have been operated in Paris since 2018, it was the first city to adopt electric vehicles and where on the one hand people loved them because of less time-consuming and convenient vehicles, on the other hand, there were several accidents reported because of these e-scooters. In 2020, considering the complaints about their anarchic deployment, Paris cut the number of operators to three giving them a three-year contract requiring that scooters’ speeds be capped at 20km/h.

But recently in a rare public consultation, the people in Paris voted to remove e-scooters from the streets. The e-scooter ban won 89% of the votes as per the city hall’s Twitter account, though the turnout in the referendum was low at 7.46% of registered voters. As per reports, 103,000 people took part in the voting out of which 91,300 people voted against the scooters.

The reason for these negative votes was mentioned as people weaving through traffic with these scooters, riders didn’t wear helmets, growing accidents, cluttering in the pavements, and children of age 12 hiring the scooters and riding scooters at 17km/h. Last year, Paris registered 459 accidents with e-scooters including three fatal ones. Hence the people in Paris decided to vote to put a ban on e-scooters.

Respecting the votes, Mayor Anne Hidalgo told a news conference, “ From September 1, there will be no more electric scooters for rent in Paris .” Paris will be the first European country to impose a complete ban on e-scooters. Though the ban will only be on rental scooters and not privately owned vehicles.

After hearing the announcement, Scooter operators showed their concern on this matter and hoped that instead of imposing the ban, Mayor should release some regulations to avoid the issues related to the e-scooters.