The executive decided to act. Minimum age of 14 or 16 years, identification number, blinkers, reinforced controls but no obligation to wear a helmet: the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, announced on Sunday at the JDD his national plan to regulate the use of electric scooters, a month before the referendum in Paris on their ban.
By presenting this plan, the Minister firmly takes the opposite position of the vote organized on April 2 by the mayor of Paris.
“Anne Hidalgo wants to ban skateboards without assuming it, which is why she is organizing a referendum without a campaign and without the possibility of expressing contradictory opinions,” the minister criticized in the sunday newspaperseeing it as “an admission of failure and weakness”.
“I will go to vote as a citizen and as an elected representative of Paris. You have understood in what sense…”, he added.
Mandatory parking spaces
On the contrary, Clément Beaune intends to remain “in the spirit of the 2019 mobility law, which left a maximum of regulation to cities”, while proposing to help them with a “reinforced national framework”.
Specifically, he wants the minimum age -currently 12 years- to be raised to “at least 14 or 16 years”, with the generalization of verification devices. “It is imperative to prevent tragedies involving young adolescents,” she said.
“So, all self-service scooters need a visible identification number: this will facilitate and reinforce controls,” he explained, also advocating for the mandatory nature of turn signals.
“To put an end to the piles of abandoned scooters, most communities have set up mandatory parking spaces: the operators must imperatively generalize the double stop and increase patrols”, declared the minister.
“Harden the fines”
Citing the example of Lyon, Clément Beaune ultimately advocated for the ecological requirement of “a longer battery life and a recycling obligation in France”.
“The State will put the sword in the kidneys of the operators, because the relaxation has lasted too long,” explained the minister.
On the other hand, it does not retain the obligation of the helmet: “because for an obligation to be effective, it must be able to be controlled and this would affect an immense number of cases.”
“If you do it for the scooter, consistency requires that you do it for the bike”, also argued the minister, who does not want to discourage the expansion of the number of users of these alternatives to the car.
Clément Beaune also says that he is willing to “tighten the fines” for those who drive two (currently 35 euros). “It is prohibited and is the cause of one in five serious accidents,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
