After the French capital decided to ban scooter rent services, other cities are considering similar moves amid safety concerns. Vilnius, however, is not one of them, assured the city’s mayor-elect Valdas Benkunskas, while admitting that there is a need for more regulation.
Traffic rules should be tailored to different environments where electric scooters are used, Benkunskas opined on LRT TV’s programme Important Hour (Svarbi Valanda) on Monday.
“First of all, we need to identify the places and sections where restrictions on scooters should be applied. Obviously, [...] some sections are really busy, so in this case, if scooters are allowed, they will have to travel under a speed limit without endangering safety,” he said.
It is not only safety that is important, according to Benkunskas, but also the aesthetic appearance of the streets.
“To prevent scooters from being dropped or left anywhere, there could be a clear plan of parking spaces where scooters can be left,” he suggested.
Finally, he argued that penalties for rules violations need to be reviewed.
“We are certainly not going to go the way of Paris and completely ban this means of micromobility, but in the interests of safety and order, there may be some regulatory changes,” said Benkunskas, who was elected Vilnius mayor last month.
Scooters are involved in 6 percent of traffic accidents in which people are injured. The most common cause is a collision between a car and a scooter.
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