Paris voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to ban the rental of electric scooters from the streets of the French capital.
The referendum means that the City of Lights, which pioneered the adoption of scooter rentals, should become the only major European capital to ban these app-reserved devices.
In a public consultation organized by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, city residents were invited to vote for or against this mode of transport. The official result left no doubt, with almost 90 percent of the vote against.
“We’re happy. This is what we’ve been fighting against for more than four years,” said Arnaud Kielbasa, co-founder of the charity Apacauvi, which represents victims of electric scooter accidents.
“All Parisians say they are nervous on the sidewalk, nervous when crossing the street. You have to be careful with them everywhere,” Kielbasa, whose wife and daughter were hit by a scooter, told AFP.
“Respect the voters’ choice”
Operators say they are unfairly held responsible for the often chaotic nature of the streets of Paris, where Mayor Hidalgo has been an advocate for the use of bicycles and other clean forms of transport since taking office in 2014.
Management welcomed scooter drivers in 2018, but has since gradually tightened regulations, created special parking zones, capped top speeds and limited the number of drivers.
But such measures have failed to convince residents, who often complain about reckless and drunk driving, as well as litter on the sidewalks.
A series of fatal accidents has also shown the dangers of vehicles that can currently be rented by children as young as 12 years old.
“I am determined to respect voters’ choice, pure and simple,” Hidalgo told reporters as he cast his ballot on Sunday.
It is now expected that the contracts with the three operators in the city – Lime of California, Dott of Amsterdam and Tier of Berlin – will not be renewed from August 31.
However, this referendum will not affect privately owned electric scooters, of which 700,000 were sold nationwide last year, according to data from the Department of Transportation.
In France, about 100,000 trips are made every day on rented scooters in about 200 cities.
“Against the flow?”
The ban represents significant financial and reputational damage to multinational operators and could encourage other cities to follow suit.
Montreal banned all electric scooters for rental or private use in 2020, while Copenhagen banned rental versions in 2020 before returning a year later with stricter conditions.
Electric scooter manufacturers have supported stricter rules in France, unveiled by the government last week, raising the minimum age of use to 14 and increasing fines for offenses such as riding with a passenger.
“Of course there are violations. But that’s human nature, not the vehicle,” Nicolas Gorse, general manager of Dott, told LCI television on Sunday. “What we need is educating, supervising and punishing.”
Hadi Karam, Lime’s general manager for France, told AFP last week that Paris was “swimming against the grain” in an effort to ban electric scooter rentals, citing recent decisions to expand them in Washington, DC. New York, Madrid or London. “There is a trend for these vehicles and this trend started in Paris, which was a pioneer,” he recalls.
Operators offered free rides to customers who voted on a Sunday and hired online influencers to try to gain support among their mostly young users – all to no avail, judging by the high percentage of older voters queuing.
“They are dangerous vehicles, both for those who use them and for pedestrians,” Françoise Granier, a 68-year-old doctor who voted in the ninth district of the capital, told AFP. “And the police never intervene.”
Like them, computer technician Michael Dahan, 50, lamented the state of the capital’s streets, saying: “If it were more regulated, I wouldn’t be against it…but you see people acting crazy.”
Source: DN
