‘I would remove electric scooters in general, but progress can't be stopped’
More than half of Kazan residents approved the ban on riding electric scooters for those under 16
More than half of Kazan residents are in favour of banning e-scooter riding for under 16s
About half (53%) of Kazan residents surveyed spoke in favour of banning electric scooter riding for those under 16. This follows from the SuperJob survey data. This opinion is more common among parents of minors: they believe that children under 16 are too inattentive and can create dangerous situations on the road.
26% of respondents proposed raising the age limit to 18, believing that people are more conscientious at this age. 12% of study participants were against introducing such a restriction in principle.
Interestingly, women are more likely than men to support the idea of a ban. Residents of the city under 35 are especially active against driving.
In early autumn, another e-scooter rental service, Whoosh, advocated for the introduction of age restrictions on driving this type of transport, proposing to make corresponding changes to the traffic regulations. The operator planned to implement age verification technology that would automatically exclude users under 16. According to Whoosh, the accident rate among young people is comparable to the level of adults.
A similar restriction was introduced by the Yandex Go service, which left Kazan. It had an increased fine for the use of a scooter by people under 18.
“The younger the person, the less sense of danger he or she has”
Not only city residents and e-scooter operators, but also experts in the field of road traffic advocate for an age limit for electric scooter drivers. Yuri Kulagin, chairman of the All-Russian Society of Automobile Owners, also supported the initiative:
Some pedestrians are so unhappy with the situation with e-scooters on the roads that they speak out against their use in principle, since not only children but also adults cause inconvenience. However, Kulagin noted that this will most likely not happen:
“I would remove electric scooters in general, but progress cannot be stopped, they will still come up with new means of transportation. It is necessary to somehow regulate this so that before sitting down, a person not only knows the traffic rules, but also has experience driving this scooter. “
Earlier, head of the Tatarstan State Traffic Inspectorate Rustem Garipov called on scooter riders to comply with traffic rules to a greater extent, since this type of driver is in a special risk group:
In seven months in Tatarstan, three injured children — because of e-scooters
In Kazan, in the first seven months of this year (almost until the end of the e-scooter riding season), 14 accidents involving scooters were recorded. As a result, one person died, another 13 were injured, three of them were children.
In addition, during this period, the State Traffic Inspectorate officers drew up about 800 administrative materials to bring violators to justice.
In order to reduce accidents, it was then ordered to analyse the number of accidents per e-scooter unit and identify additional measures, as well as strengthen efforts to prevent minors from operating electric scooters.
For transferring control of a scooter to a child — a fine of 10,000 rubles
At the moment, you can operate an electric scooter from the age of 14, but recently the Ministry of Transport of Russia proposed raising the minimum age to 16.
In July, the State Duma adopted a bill on establishing high fines for violating the rules for their use:
- for example, a fine of 10,000 rubles was introduced for transferring control of an electric scooter to a child;
- for riding on one SIM with a passenger — 5,000 rubles;
- not hurrying at a pedestrian crossing — 1,000 rubles;
- incorrect parking — 500 rubles.
In addition, it was proposed to introduce a biometric identity verification function into scooter rental applications. If a person uses someone else's or a stolen account, he simply won't be able to start a trip. This will make it possible to track the driver's age.
In order to prevent accidents, from the middle of autumn, a programme for teaching safe scooter riding has been launched in schools. The training will cover more than 100,000 year eight students. Lectures are not yet being held in Tatarstan; the initiative only applies to Moscow students.