Madrid has announced that it will ban the rental of electric scooters, making it the second European capital after Paris to do so due to the increasing number of accidents in which pedestrians are the most common victims.
The Madrid city government announced that the ban will come into effect on October 1, AFP reported.
"We are withdrawing all permits for companies to rent e-scooters on the streets of the city," Madrid's conservative mayor Luis Martinez Almeida wrote on the Ix network. He said that the priority is the safety of the citizens of Madrid.
Three companies that have a license to rent 6.000 electric scooters will have to remove them from the streets because "they did not respect the condition we set - to guarantee the safety of pedestrians, primarily the elderly," wrote the mayor.
The Madrid authorities specified that the companies did not use technology that would make it impossible to drive or park e-scooters in restricted zones, and that they did not have adequate insurance policies in case of an accident.
For fans of e-scooters, they are a real revolution in transportation, as they allow the driver to move quickly and at minimal cost through the city bustle. For others, they disturb peaceful pedestrians and threaten to injure passers-by.
In just two decades, the world market for these small electric vehicles has reached tens of billions of dollars.
Paris banned renting a little more than a year ago, and unlike the French capital, the Madrid authorities did not seek the opinion of citizens for such a decision.
In the capital of Spain, renting has existed since 2019, and accidents, disturbing pedestrians, blocking sidewalks and improperly leaving scooters are no less, even though thousands of fines ranging from 30 to 200 euros have been issued.
There were, as in other parts of Spain, accidents in which people lost their lives.
In many other European cities, restrictions have been introduced for riding e-scooters, limiting their number or banning them from riding on the sidewalk.
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