Almost every trip of young teenagers on electric scooters leads to an incident
It is proposed to allow riding the personal transporter from the age of 21 in Russia
Russia plans to limit the minimum age for using electric scooters — and for good reason. As Whoosh kicksharing service reported to Realnoe Vremya, almost every trip by teenagers under the age of 14-15 is made with violations and leads to some kind of incident. At the same time, as another expert of the publication convinces, it is necessary to act in this direction comprehensively and the problem cannot be solved by restrictions alone. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
Age limit for riding electric scooters
In Russia, it has been proposed to limit the minimum age for the use of personal light electric vehicle, including for scooters. Deputy Minister of Transport of the country Valentin Ivanov told reporters about this. He clarified that the relevant draft law of the Ministry of Transport was sent for revision after consideration by the government.
In November, Ivanov reported that options for a minimum age limit of 14 to 18 years were being discussed.
At the same time, the idea of a stricter restriction was also voiced — to allow electric scooters to be used only from the age of 21. This opinion was expressed by Mikhail Vetrov, a deputy of the Shushary Settlement Municipality of St. Petersburg, in an interview with RT.
“For me and experts who are deeply into the subject, it is obvious that there is practically no difference between a shared electric scooter and a low-power motorcycle. The only thing a motorcycle requires is a driver's license, insurance, and serious skills. While for a scooter, a couple of hundred rubles on a bank card," he said.
In his opinion, it is necessary to create a section on the public services portal, for example, with virtual rights to scooters, in order to “introduce the principle of responsibility.”
“Otherwise, only adults from 21-22 years old should be allowed to use the service and with a significant increase in the cost of using the service," says Vetrov.
Among older teenagers, the accident rate is minimal
The bill is really necessary — statistics confirm this, Denis Balakirev, a representative of the Whoosh press service, told Realnoe Vremya. According to him, the accident rate among younger teenagers is noticeably higher than among other users.
At the same time, the initiative to limit the age to 21 is a “controversial issue”:
“You can even drive a car from the age of 18! Moreover, according to statistics, we see that the behaviour of an older teenager does not differ from that of an adult.”
However, the problem does not end with kicksharing services, and the problem must be solved comprehensively, Balakirev believes. So far, private scooters remain in the gray area, but there are all the technical possibilities for their regulation.
“There are various options: you can enter authorisation through government services, as in Moscow, you can verify your identity through bank IDs, as we do, there is the possibility of adding a SIM card to the scooter, which binds the SIM to a single system. There are many technical possibilities, and as far as we know, these issues are currently being worked out," the speaker said.
The source is sure that all new measures are necessary for the current time. We need to continue to introduce ways to adjust movement on the SIM and increase general knowledge of traffic regulations:
“Now a scooter is a full-fledged transport that really plays a very important transport role in the life of the city. A lot of people use scooters as urban transportation. They don't get behind the wheel of a car, so there are fewer traffic jams in the city, they use public transport less, and therefore buses often have more space. Scooters are obviously convenient for the city, so it is important to increase user responsibility," concluded Balakirev.
There are restrictions, but conditions are also needed
Vladlen Kopvillem, a lawyer at the Russian Federation of Motorists, reacted ambiguously to the bill. In a conversation with Realnoe Vremya, he expressed the opinion that the problem of electric scooters cannot be solved by law alone — it is necessary to act comprehensively.
For example, it is necessary to introduce courses for teaching traffic rules and riding a scooter. Such training can be conducted, for example, on the basis of driving schools.
Moreover, bans and restrictions alone cannot reduce accidents — it is necessary to create infrastructure conditions, Kopvillem is sure:
Returning to the draft law, the expert expressed the opinion that children from at least 14 years of age and older can be allowed to drive a scooter. However, he also considered Vetrov's idea of a threshold of 21 to be superfluous.