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The city of Paris has said it is considering banning electric scooters if the companies that operate them do not enforce speed limits and other rules. The warning comes after an Italian woman died earlier this month after being beaten by two women, who fled the scene.
“Either the situation improves appreciably and the scooters find their place in the public space without posing problems, in particular for the pedestrians, or one plans to get rid of them completely”, declared Tuesday the deputy mayor of Paris David Belliard, in charge of transport.
“Other cities have done it,” he said, citing the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux as well as New York and Barcelona.
On Saturday, police charged a nurse with intentional homicide for the fatal collision with “Miriam”, a 32-year-old Italian woman living in Paris, who was standing on the banks of the Seine chatting with friends when she been affected.
The biker and a passenger on the same scooter fled and were found after a 10-day search.
The death of the woman, which brings to at least three the number of people fatally affected by electric scooters in Paris since 2019, has reignited the debate on the authorization of the devices in the streets of the city.
15,000 e-scooters for rental
Some 15,000 devices are available for hire throughout the city, where they are said to be speed limited to 20 km / h, with a single rider, and only on streets or cycle lanes.
Critics say these rules are hardly enforced and complain that scooters are often thrown on sidewalks or in squares.
Belliard said he summoned the executives of the three electric scooter operators, Lime, Dott and Tier, telling them that he had received “many negative comments about scooters on the sidewalks, the feeling of insecurity and abandoned scooters in the streets. streets “.
Their contracts, which add nearly a million euros a year to the city’s coffers, run until October 2022, when they risk not being renewed, Belliard said.
He added that from Wednesday, operators must ensure that the speed of scooters does not exceed 10 km / h in several “slow zones” in central Paris, including the popular places of the Republic and the Bastille. , where the city has recently added large pedestrian areas.
Operators can install speedbrakes that activate automatically if the scooter enters slow zones, which are programmed into the GPS units.
(with AFP)
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