E-scooters under fire: Can cities make them safer?

Facing cluttered sidewalks, reckless drivers and now the first known fatality in Europe, cities are threatening to kill the e-scooter. But fans of the e-mobility option say the criticism is misplaced.

    

E-scooters are most likely here stay despite safety concerns

They have a low body, long neck, two plate-sized wheels and an electric hum that sneaks up on you: Once the newest e-mobility darling, e-scooters have since become the cause of everything from cluttered sidewalks to a fatal incident in Paris. Critics say they're a public menace. But others disagree.

"It makes you feel like a kid again," 28-year-old Santosh Mani said of his experience coasting on the battery-powered scooters around the western German city of Bonn. It's the convenience of e-scooters that had Mani using the controversial mode of transportation eight to 10 times a month before the pandemic. "You can find them pretty much anywhere," he says. 

He's not exaggerating. In the US ー where the e-scooting trend first took off ー you can find e-scooter-sharing services in more than 100 cities. These provided close to 40 million trips in 2018, according to a transportation research study aptly named "To Scoot or Not to Scoot." Even New York City, after many years of resisting the swans with wheels, finally gave in to demand in November.

The transportation trend has since found its way onto every street of every major city in Europe, too.

Europe is catching up

Tier ー a micromobility company and Europe's biggest e-scooter provider ー was founded in 2018 in Berlin. With a valuation of $1 billion (€844 billion), today Tier has over 80,000 electric mobility offerings in 13 countries and 120 cities.

The pandemic hasn't slowed business down, either. On the contrary, momentum is building. "We are still seeing a very positive trend when it comes to investors," said Tier spokesperson Florian Anders. Investors want to help push the concept into bigger markets.

Tier is just one of a handful of e-scooter providers riding the investor wave ー Dott, Wind and Voi are others worth mentioning. But the throng of scooters flooding onto the streets and sidewalks of Paris, Berlin and, most recently, London have many feeling that these companies are moving faster than city regulators can keep up.  

Safety concerns

On June 19, a 31-year-old woman was killed in Paris when a couple riding an e-scooter knocked her to the ground, putting her in a coma. She died two days later. The incident has caused an uproar, and prompted the deputy mayor to summon all e-scooter executives to discuss safety concerns.

The French capital has even threatened to ban the electric rollers if the companies managing them don't implement stricter rules.

"For us, safety is top priority," Anders said in response to the incident in Paris. "We are making the hardware as safe as possible, adding signals. It's also about education, like preventing tandem riding or drunk driving. It is a big issue for us."

Germany's Transport Ministry has also considered whether this new mode of mobility is safe for city streets. So far, the ministry has shown a moderate approach, saying that "the regulation on very small electric vehicles is a balanced solution between the new introduction of new forms of mobility on the one hand and ensuring road safety on the other."

In an attempt to find that balance, Germany has implemented a minimum riding age of 14 and a maximum speed limit of 12 miles per hour (20 kilometers per hour), and requires the vehicles be used in bike lanes.

But gaps in implementation have people concerned.

"It makes you feel like you have not been properly instructed on something," Mani said about his first couple of experiences riding.

Cities are trying to find new ways to regulate the e-scooters clogging their sidewalks

An overreaction?

The car today takes up vast amounts of public space while claiming tens of thousands of lives every year. Some question the animosity toward an electric scooter that goes 12 miles per hour.  

"I do want to caution, as horrifying as it is that this woman was killed, thousands of people die getting hit by cars. And I 100% support people feeling safe on sidewalks, but e-scooters should not be seen as public enemy No. 1," said Rebecca Sanders, owner of Safe Streets Research and Consulting.

With micromobility seemingly here to stay, Sanders expects an evolution in policy. "I think we'll see cities fine e-scooter sharing companies if scooters are not in designated parking areas, or implement geofencing restricting scooters to certain areas," she said.

"It is about creating a transportation system that integrates this new form of mobility," Sanders added.

Selling sustainability

As companies such as Tier continue to wrestle with regulators and address safety concerns, their biggest selling point is sustainability. 

Tier wants to "create a more sustainable environment, teach mobility for good and transform cities with micromobility," Tier's Anders said.

"Is it more sustainable than biking or walking? No. Is it more sustainable than driving? Definitely," he argued.

Hundreds of e-scooters have been fished out of rivers in cities from Austin, Texas, to Hamburg, Germany

Are e-scooters really so sustainable? The fact that the lifespan of many models is only three years — or that many get tossed into the river by vandals long before that — takes some of the edge off the sustainability argument.

"If we do it well, I think that this form of mobility could become a sustainable part of urban transportation infrastructure. If we do it well," Sanders emphasized.  

As for someone like Mani, who hops on a scooter when he misses the bus or is heading to a get-together nearby, the concern isn't so much safety or sustainability — it's convenience.

"I don't like biking to a party because you show up all sweaty," the 28-year-old said. "With e-scooters, you don't have that problem."