Heads up for helmets on:
"Italy's parliament approved a bill ... that will require e-scooter riders to wear helmets and be insured, while also introducing tougher fines for rogue parking as part of a wider overhaul of the highway code."
Last weekend the police started checking the helmet rule in cities such as Rome, Milan and Florence. Penalty for driving without helmet is 50 EUR.
In 2021 in the city of Florence 8 people perished in fatal road accidents. Seven of them were riding two wheeled vehicles (including mopeds, bicycles and e-scooters), one was a pedestrian. Two wheeled vehicles are dangerous, and one of the leading causes of premature death for persons under 30 year of age, especially in Italy where so many people use them.
Horrible story and I support the regulation for using these vehicles from what I see in Berlin.
On the other side we shall become honest to ourselves: it is not "the e-scooters" or "the Internet" or "the Social Media" it is always us; we the human kind in the full glory of its insanity and imperfection.
I have been injured several times riding them, and it's almost always because pedestrians are unsure of how to react (or share the way more generally) which forces me into taking a fall or trip instead of knocking into them. Recall that it's a running joke in big cities like NYC that some people on the sidewalks will inexplicably stop or pause in the foot traffic, perhaps to look at something or second guess their routes, and it annoys the regular users. This behavior is even worse if you're rolling up behind them expecting them to continue moving, but they don't.
pedestrians are unsure of how to react (or share the way more generally)
Remember that in Italy an e-scooter is considered a vehicle, so is strictly forbidden use it on pedestrian walkabouts, under porticoes and so on! The same is true for bicycles! And, as any other vehicle, should respect all other driving laws, like stop where there is a pedestrian crossing.
haven't you got brakes? And what are you doing in the same space as pedestrians with a motor vehicle?
E-scooters, at least in Italy, are a major source of traffic danger as drivers are simply too busy to be concerned with traffic regulations. Not only riders will have to wear helmets, but the scooters will have to be registered and insured - the law is already there but government regulations have still to be issued to enforce it.
I cannot help thinking that a supplementary motive to register e-scooters is that they are the preferred vehicle for drug dealers; you can move quickly, flexibly, in all forbidden areas including parks and gardens and anonymously. By registering them, probably somebody in government is thinking how to take some anonymity out.
I would add that another big source of traffic danger are home deliveries on bikes; they are timed so tightly that they cannot afford respecting red lights and one-way streets.
Audrey Hepburn on a Vespa wearing a helmet?
Audrey Hepburn on a Vespa wearing a helmet?
Is a movie of the 1953, almost one century old!!!!
In that period helmets weren't mandatory in Italy.
In fact, even seat belts of race cars like F1 were mandatory in the Fifties....
nor seatbelts of passenger cars in the US, and even later in the UK
I'm all for the helmet regulation. If you are riding any 2 wheeled device in a street, you need to be wearing head protection. No one should be riding a bike or e scooter on a sidewalk and endangering pedestrians.
DD was in a scooter accident back in September. Was hit by a car and broke her leg in 2 places. She's still on crutches. Her helmet was a mess- but at least her head escaped injury. She wont be replacing the scooter.
Good.
I hope it can be enforced.
As a nurse I looked after many patients with head injuries caused by not wearing helmets.
Now, people just have to learn to wear them properly: actually buckled up and not perched way back on their heads.
It seems a rather ham-fisted piece of legislation to me. If they wanted to regulate the use of these vehicles there's better ways to go about it surely? Leaving aside the helmet issue, there's no way on earth this type of scooter should require a licence plate and insurance like a motor vehicle. It seems unnecessarily punitive to the user, instead of going after corporations like Lime and restricting what they can do. There might be a political angle I feel, given which section of the coalition is driving this.
Way back when Bridgestone was also making bicycles a line from their owner's manuals made an impression on me that lasts until this day:
You should wear head protection whenever you are moving at high speeds.
"High speeds" is defined as faster than you can run.
I think they should have a license plate. Some of those e-scooters can go well over 50km/h, but the law in Italy doesn't allow those scooters to go over 20 km/h and 6 km/h in pedestrianized areas. Since they use the speed cameras all over to enforce the speed law, I don't see why they shouldn't do the same with those scooters. They are not less dangerous than a 50cc motorcycle, which already requires a license plate. Mandatory insurance may be an overreach, but if they hurt a little kid who pays? Many of those people riding those scooters are youngsters with no financial assets to go after.
There's already EU-wide legislation in place that should limit e-scooters to 20km/h. It's not legal to sell anything faster than that. The threshold for something that needs plates, insurance and a helmet and that can be ridden on the road in the UK is 15.5mph (24km/h). I don't know if there's similar EU or Italian legislation.
I personally think imposing restrictions in line with a motor vehicle on stand up scooters that should already be limited to 20km/h is too much. People riding them dangerously are hopefully a small minority. The technology exists to control how they're being parked with GPS. They're tightly controlled in here in London because they can be a PITA, but to treat them like motorcycles or cars is a mistake. It's working contrary to progressive ideas about personal mobility in our cities.
We saw the same sort of pro-car, anti-environmental stance from the right here in London at the time of the Mayoral election, and this is just another example of that sort of populism that's a vote winner with that crowd.
Does this also include those damnable Lime electric scooters (and those like them)? I know cyclists who've been seriously injured because people had just abandoned a scooter in the middle of a bike path. And pedestrians who've been run into by dolts riding them on sidewalks. I absolutely hate those things.
As a nurse I looked after many patients with head injuries caused by not wearing helmets.
I remember a time when one of my best schoolmates studied medicine and worked for the heart transplantation clinic in Berlin. Every spring they were not allowed to take vacation because it was "fresh organ" season when young motorcyclists had deadly accidents and their organs were allowed to rescue another one's life. One evening we had a few drinks when his pager was alarmed that a fresh heart will come by plane from Zurich. So we ended our evening and I drove him to the clinic - well knowing that someone's brain and parts of body died shortly before.
Helmets can save lives - period.
Let's not forget we're talking about scooters that you stand up on that are limited to 20km/h by law here. People dying in motorcycle accidents is terrible, I agree. I've known a couple of people die riding their motorcycles in my time and one other with life changing injuries. It's far, far riskier than riding an e-scooter. I'm not convinced of the need for a mandated helmet for something limited to 20km/h.
I'm not convinced of the need for a mandated helmet for something limited to 20km/h.
Tell that to my DD. She was stationary when she was hit.
You would think it would be self evident that you would wear a helmet. Not only could scooter be dangerous, stupidity can kill you.
Tell that to my DD.
Please don't take it personally. I wish you and your daughter all the best. I hope she is recovering well.
You would think it would be self evident that you would wear a helmet.
Honestly, it isn't to me. Stand at any Dutch intersection and count the number of people wearing a helmet. VIrtually none. That's because, for the most part, they're doing it right and people are safe enough that they don't need one.
I think there's better ways of reducing risk with legislation than forcing all road users who aren't in cars to wear helmets, have plates and insurance like a motor vehicle. It seems like a backward step to me in aiming to make cities car free or low traffic, and providing options for people's personal mobility without unnecessary (in my opinion) burdens. Forcing those who are most often victims in a road accident scenario to take extra precautions instead of taking steps to reduce their risks in traffic is counterproductive in the long run.
Again, I don't think it's really all about safety anyway. I'd guess it's the same people who lobby against low emission zones in parliament that have managed to vote it through into law.
My apologies if I'm over-egging the pudding somewhat debating this. I'm obviously out here on my own :)
Are we sure in the UK they go only up to 20 km/h? Not this one
Also in Italy they are not any slower it seems.
Yeah those people are breaking laws which already existed. There's a big culture of very hot tuned e-bikes here in London, mainly amongst the folks who are using them for deliveries. Highly illegal. That's a whole separate law and needs enforcing before you need to slap plates and buy insurance on your 20km/h e-scooter.
I think that head protection should be mandatory, including for bikes. Insurance we can debate since they don’t cause a lot of damage except for maybe to themselves. Without license plates you can’t enforce anything, certainly not speed limits or improper use on sidewalks.
Gerry, maybe it is not self evident to wear a helmet. That’s where the stupid part comes in.
That’s where the stupid part comes in.
I really do hope you aren't being so rude as to imply that I'm stupid because I have a different opinion on this.
I'm really not convinced that if used sensibly, something that is limited to 20km/h (or 6km/h in pedestrian areas) requires wearing of a helmet, having a plate registered and insurance.
To my mind, there should be a form of mobility one step above walking, but below the threshold where it constitutes a motor vehicle (electric or internal combustion powered). Wearing a helmet, having plates and insurance. Something someone can carry on the metro and use to ride to the office. Or rent through the app on their phone. Having to wear a helmet is just something that goes with the territory of having a motor vehicle with plates on it. Getting too hung up on the helmet safety issue when we're talking about a very low risk form of personal transport is a mistake I think. It's not a universal truth that one must wear a helmet as soon as one propels oneself on two wheels.
If you can see the wood for the trees (moss), imposing these restrictions is just a ham-fisted way of making sure that it's impossible for anyone to offer an e-scooter rental program in the cities by way of anti-environment political points-scoring.
What has happened in London (and is largely irrelevant to the Italian issue) is that many boroughs have banned e-scooter rental by way of forcing the companies to exclude them geographically by GPS on their apps. I believe I read that the Borough of Ealing is currently running a council-supervised trial program with them and parking and speed limiting is tightly controlled by GPS. I acknowledge further up that e-scooters are a bit of a PITA, but I'm all for making personal mobility easier outside of using a car.
Hopefully you get where I'm coming from on more of an environmental point of view, looking to how cities might be in the future. It's not that I don't care about the risks of using these types of devices, but I think it's unfortunate that some have sought to make it wholly impractical when it doesn't need to be.
It boggles the mind (or at least it boggles mine) that anyone could be against requiring helmets for anyone operating a scooter. Especially when said scooters are required to ride in the street. How is this different than mandating helmets for bicycle riders? I wonder if these people are also against using seat belts in cars. I find it hard to believe anyone who had spent any time on 2 wheels on city streets and had taken a fall or had been hit by a car or car door would feel that way. I'll leave the licensing /insurance argument to others. But wonder what's the big deal, since rental cars have been licensed and insured from the get go.
It is actually possible that these measures are secretly supported by the taxi lobby, which is very powerful in Italy, I don’t know, however I don’t think the requirement to have those vehicles registered with a plate is so burdensome. Mopeds with 50cc engines are required to do so since 2006 in Italy.
The issue of helmets needs to be pondered in terms of costs and benefits. When I was growing up in Italy helmets weren’t mandatory for motorcycles and rarely wore one (and I was lucky enough to never need it). They became mandatory for motorcycles in 1986, also for 50cc mopeds, which by law should not drive above 40 km/h. These e-scooters seem to be able to ride well above 40km/h, let alone the prescribed 20km/h, therefore it is reasonable to expect a mandatory helmet for them as well. But maybe even pedestrians should wear a helmet, considering that in Italy approximately 50 pedestrians are struck every single day, and one of them dies every day as a result (it’s even worse in the US where we have almost 8,000 pedestrians killed a year). Once again it is a matter of weighing costs and benefits. Is having a certain number of deaths on e-scooters an acceptable cost for the benefit of encouraging the use of this form of transportation? 50% of the traffic deaths in Italy are on two wheeled vehicles, and the majority of them are in city streets where those vehicles are prevalent.
Gerry you aren't alone in wanting broader considerations to be taken into consideration!
Note also that RS has video clips from the Netherlands of discussions about wearing bike helmets, and the general drift is that they don't need to.
OTOH, to go with MarkK's mention of fresh organ season above, here in the USA hospital staff like to call motorcycles 'donorcycles'. I myself find full-face helmets stifling, but so many people bug me about it and send photos and stories of horrible results from incidents where riders were wearing open-face helmets. And don't get them started on half-helmets...
Helmet usage on a scooter need not be mandated. I am neither here nor there on that issue. The real issue with scooter use nowadays is not danger to the rider, but danger to the pedestrian. Scooters go all over, sidewalks, dirt paths, bike lanes, car lanes. Perhaps that is where enforcement should be.
Helmets, no helmets, who cares. It’s your head. I am not sure why there is this new law in Italy. If someone rides like a crazy person with disregard for pedestrians and other traffic I do not believe wearing a helmet will change their behavior for the better. Maybe even worse as now they may feel invincible.
I think this thread digresses from the real issues.
Yes it is their head, but in Italy there is a National Health Service which takes care of people basically free of charge to the user. So "it is your head but it is our money", as many Italian taxpayers would say. Then if we use the same principle we should remove the requirement to wear seat belts in a car (or airplanes).
Regarding e-scooters being unruly and disregarding any rule of good behavior I agree, and that is why a license plate is necessary to enforce the laws, also by cameras, like Italy likes to do for speed limits or unauthorized ZTL entry.
I like to bring in numbers from Germany into the discussion - well knowing that this is Italy forum:
In Germany the number of accidents involving e-scooters increased in 2023. This was announced by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden on Friday. In total, the police registered 9,425 e-scooter accidents with personal injury in Germany in 2023 - 14.1 percent more than in the previous year (8,260 accidents). With 22 fatalities, the number of people who died as a result of an accident also doubled (2022: 11 fatalities).
1,220 people were seriously injured in 2023 and 8,911 were slightly injured. The vast majority (83%) of those involved in accidents were riding an e-scooter themselves, including 21 of the 22 fatalities.
The point for me is that even slow speeds can hurt people seriously when they are not prepared for a crash or that their head clashes onto the hard street or a piece standing around in public.
And too often we see "only" the physical injuries - I am not aware of any shock or trauma statistics.
Just to follow up from Mark's rather gloomy stats, I had a look to see how the land lies in London at the moment. Personal e-scooters are actually illegal in the UK now, which I wasn't aware of. I'm pretty sure I've seen some scallywags riding them fairly recently. I wonder how many of the fatalities and serious injuries Mark mentions involved collisions with cars or other motor vehicles?
I've dug up some links to share with regard to how London has dealt with e-scooter rental programs, and how it's trialling programs right now. It's not just Ealing as I thought earlier. Not to say "Look at London. Isn't London great compared to Italy?" but there seems to be a bit more of a measured approach going on that considers environmental issues.
https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/electric-scooter-rental-trial
https://www.london.gov.uk/talk-london/topics/transport/london-rental-e-scooter-trial/updates/1132
If we are going to widen the scope of the question beyond Italy, in my part of England the biggest problem for my wife and I is the careless abandonment of hire scooters (VOI here, Lime elsewhere) across and blocking pavements (sidewalks). My wife is disabled and needs the pavement to walk (slowly) with her walker. Many times there is no room to get around. It is unsafe. The users drop them as soon as they get off because they are charged by the minute. We had a case where an elderly gentleman was trapped so he left his wheelchair and tried to lift the offending e-scooter out of the way and fell and hit his head, dying within the week. Illegal to ride it on the pavement. Illegal to ride it under 18 or without a driving licence or tandem (giving somebody a ride). Doesn't stop them.
And the fastest, unmarked and dangerous are the privately owned imports - much faster, all ridden illegally if they are not on private land, and many suped up to go at up to 50 mph (80+ kph). On pavements, the wrong side of roads, against traffic, through red lights.
Sorry, GerryM we are going to have to ban them everywhere. Good idea gone badly wrong. First time I think I've disagreed with you.
This is from a motor biker in a previous life, in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Oh, and I always had my skid lid on.
Frank II the Audrey comment was very revealing ... some people are wound too tight.
I can't stand the e-scooters as they are a hazard to everyone around them. I also am not crazy about helmet laws.
the biggest problem for my wife and I is the careless abandonment of hire scooters
That was what got them banned in London originally. It's the much more anti-social aspect of them than the actual riding. It's just now that the parking problem has been tackled using the GPS technology linked to the apps to make sure people are parking them where they should. Lime has really got a handle on it compared to a few years ago with their e-bikes. There's no e-scooter rental allowed here in Hackney. I was going to post last night saying I didn't remember seeing a private, high speed e-scooter in a while, then while I was at the shop a bloke came in pushing one.
I'm not the biggest fan of private e-scooters either. I pretty much support the ban on them if it's the case that the majority can't be trusted to stick to the laws around speed and power allowed. As far as riding on pavements [sidewalks] etc., well I'm maybe a bit numb to that level of behaviour. In a densely populated inner London borough like where I am, I always count on there being a small minority of people who DGAF about much, and the occasional anti-social cyclist is one of the manifestations of that.
What made me prick up my ears with the Italian solution that started this thread off was the reclassification of e-scooters to bring them in line with the requirements for a motor vehicle. That seems like a clumsy and cynical way to control their use to me. It's a sad sign of the times reflected all over Europe that there's elements in parliaments that have the power to enact these sort of regressive laws we're seeing in Italy. At least it hasn't happened here (yet).
E-scooters aren't great, for all the reasons that people have mentioned further up this thread. Personal mobility in cities is important however, and e-scooter and e-bike rental schemes are what we've got in terms of the technology at the moment, until someone makes something better.
I'm certainly going to be paying attention to every e-scooter I see now I've been yapping on about them ad infinitum. I feel I should go to a borough where they're allowed and rent one in the name of science.
