The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), a non-profit international organisation dedicated to reducing deaths and injuries in transport, has published a new report revealing measures that should be taken at EU level to reduce the number of incidents involving e-scooters.
The report, titled “Improving the Road Safety of E-scooters”, calls for the development of mandatory technical requirements for all e-scooters sold in the European Union to replace “the current patchwork of national requirements and voluntary standards”. The standards should include a speed limiter set at 20 km/h as well as stability, minimum braking and maximum acceleration requirements, according to ETSC.
The researchers also recommend that national governments set a minimum age of 16 for e-scooter riders, a requirement for mandatory helmets, as well as a ban on riding after consuming alcohol or drugs or riding with passengers.
“E-scooters are now an established and popular way of getting around in urban areas in the EU. However, they also come with a degree of risk that needs addressing more effectively than today”, said report co-author Jenny Carson. “With the right combination of a safer urban traffic environment, safer vehicles and safer rider behaviour, we can ensure that the roads are safer for e-scooter riders as well as cyclists and pedestrians.”
In national data from European countries, the researchers found 119 road deaths in 2022 in collisions involving “motorised micro-mobility devices” – a category of personal light electric vehicle that is dominated by e-scooters but also includes rarer vehicles such as electric unicycles. While this figure was an increase on previous years, the researchers admit that may be due simply to increased numbers of e-scooter riders and are calling for more data on e-scooter usage to better understand the risk levels, which, according to some previous analyses, are higher than for cycling.
Many crashes and injuries involving e-scooters only involve the rider and no other road users. In such cases, police may not be called to the scene, leading to the possibility that the collision is not reported in national data. More needs to be done at national level to link hospital data to police records in order to gain a fuller picture of injury rates, ETSC argues.
Moreover, the report found that e-scooter-related deaths often involve alcohol, with the limited data available showing that between half and two-thirds of those killed had consumed alcohol before riding. The organisation thus calls for countermeasures against drink-riding that should include legal limits with appropriate levels of enforcement.
Complementary to drinking regulation, ETSC highlights that measures in Finland and Norway that either ban shared e-scooters at night or specifically limit their speed during nighttime have also resulted in reduced injuries.
Some existing EU product regulations apply to e-scooters, for example rules covering machinery and batteries, however there is no mandatory single standard for e-scooters covering factors such as stability, maximum speed and braking performance. In the absence of EU regulation, several EU member states including Germany and Spain, have developed their own national standards for the vehicles.
ETSC recommends that the EU develop a single set of mandatory technical requirements, including a mandatory top speed limit of 20 km/h, set at the factory. 11 European countries already require a 20 km/h maximum speed for e-scooters at national level. New standards should also require a minimum level of braking performance, a limit on maximum acceleration, front and rear brakes, an audible warning device (such as a bell), as well as front and rear lights, according to ETSC.
“The EU has mandatory safety standards for new cars, vans and lorries which include the fitting of automated emergency braking systems that can help prevent crashes with pedestrians and cyclists. However, such systems are not currently required to recognise e-scooter riders”, the organisation says, adding that the standard needs to be updated soon, as it takes years for new safety technologies to reach the majority of all vehicles on the road.
On the other hand, the organisation also calls for a 30 km/h speed limit for cars, vans and lorries in urban areas. Slower vehicles in urban areas “are much less likely to kill vulnerable road users such as e-scooter riders, pedestrians and cyclists”, ETSC says.
