MPs from United Russia have sent an initiative to the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Interior to introduce new restrictions on electric scooters and other means of individual mobility (SIM). One of the authors of the initiative, a member of the State Duma Committee on Construction, Housing and Utilities, Alexander Yakubovsky, told Russian media that lawmakers are proposing to change.
“The initiative is aimed at the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of the Interior – these are the competent federal departments that regulate the participants, including road traffic, and in general the rules for all vehicles, including vehicles. means of individual mobility, which are scooters,” he explained. .
The MPs’ proposals include three main ideas: removing e-scooters from pedestrianized streets, reducing the maximum travel speed allowed on these scooters and introducing a restriction on the management of personal mobility devices for minors.
“The main initiatives are to at least ban the presence of scooters on pedestrian streets in our country that are not intended for transport – such as Stary Arbat in Moscow, we have many such streets throughout the country, they are in all cities.So that people who are on a walking street don’t have to look back all the time and feel the scooters following them at high speed all the time, and can just walk, enjoy life, for which pedestrian streets exist in most cities of our country, Yakubovsky said.
At the same time, the deputy stressed that there was no question of banning the circulation of electric scooters on the sidewalks. The initiative involves restrictions only in directly pedestrian streets, where there is no more traffic. The ban can also apply to pedestrian zones in parks: they want to leave the possibility of riding scooters only along cycle paths, Yakubovsky added.
“There is also an initiative to lower the speed limit to 15 kilometers per hour. Now it is 25 kilometers per hour, if you look at the combined weight of the scooter itself and the person riding it. moves, 25 kilometers per hour is enough to inflict serious injury on a pedestrian in the event of a collision, so I consider it appropriate to lower this permissible threshold, ”said the MP.
He also recalled that the number of accidents involving personal mobility aids is increasing every year in Russia. According to the authors of the initiative, if in 2019 there were 147 accidents involving IMS, then in 2022 this figure was already at the level of 976 accidents, and 19 people died in such accidents in 2022. At the same time , Yakubovsky is convinced that the real statistics are even more deplorable, since, in his opinion, not all cases of collisions of scooters with people or other vehicles are correctly recorded.
According to Yakubovsky, electric scooters are particularly dangerous for teenagers. For them, the deputies propose either to completely limit the right to use electric scooters until the age of 18, or to allow them to drive a SIM from the age of 16, but to introduce a compulsory examination, such as for obtaining the right to drive a moped.
“In this case, it is necessary to pass an examination of knowledge of traffic rules, in order to obtain a full driving license. Because many accidents are linked to the fact that people who cannot be fully responsible, including legally, for their actions – teenagers – drive electric scooters at high speed.
It turns out a lot of inconveniences for people who just walk the streets or drive cars. Our task, in my opinion, is to eliminate any inconvenience to people who are on pedestrian streets or on the road.
And, of course, to protect the teenagers themselves, because we are well aware that a fall from such a speed from an electric scooter can also be fatal,” Yakubovsky concluded.
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