In February 2022, the Melbourne City Council allowed the electric scooter rental business on the city’s streets to operate on a trial basis for two years. However, since then, hundreds of different accidents have caused widespread public dissatisfaction and indignation, and many complaints have been received.
The mayor of the city, Nicholas Rees, has said that he is sick of the behavior of some electric scooter users. “Too many of them ride in pedestrian-only areas. Electric scooters are not parked in the right places. They are overturned, thrown around the city like confetti, like garbage, creating a trip hazard,” the mayor said in an interview with local radio station 3AW. He also said he wanted to “copy the actions of Paris”.
Paris banned the rental of electric scooters from September 1 last year. Companies that were able to do this business for five years – from 2018 – were forced to remove 15 thousand electric scooters used there on a daily basis from the streets of the city, reports The World. The ban decision came after an overwhelming majority of Parisians who took part in a referendum voted in favor of the ban.
Electric scooter rentals in Melbourne Lime and Neuron fought until the last against the implementation of the ban, promising to improve the safety of their use and even install artificial intelligence-controlled cameras on them to prevent their improper use. However, on Tuesday, Melbourne city councilors voted six to four to approve a decision to remove rental scooters from the city’s streets within 30 days, without even waiting for the experiment to expire in six months.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital published a report last December saying that in 2022, 250 people were taken to its emergency department after being injured while riding an electric scooter. In some cases, e-scooter accidents have resulted in death or fractures leading to brain damage. Some drivers were under the influence of alcohol, drove inappropriately fast or did not use helmets.
2024-08-15 14:18:16