Florence does not want to give in on the obligation to wear a helmet for those who go on a scooter
The administrative court of Tuscany (TAR) has canceled a provision of the municipality of Florence (technically a decisive managerial) which had introduced the obligation to wear a helmet for those who travel by scooter. Until yesterday, Tuesday 19 April, in Florence the obligation was not valid only for minors, as required by law throughout Italy, but also for people over 18 years old. The TAR already had canceled a similar measure a year ago. Despite the double negative ruling by the administrative court, the municipality is not willing to review its road safety policies. On Tuesday, shortly after the publication of the sentence of the TAR, the mayor Dario Nardella announced that the municipality will appeal to the Council of State.
The first attempt to introduce the obligation of the helmet by the municipality of Florence dates back to December 2020.
Then the mayor Nardella signed an ordinance It should have entered into force on 1 February 2021. Two companies authorized by the municipality to manage the scooter service, however, filed an appeal with the Regional Administrative Court, which on 27 January 2021 cancellation the ordinance of the municipality for “lack of incompetence”: in essence, the judges explained, since there was no “effective emergency situation” related to road safety for those who travel by scooter, the new rules could not be effective with an order of the mayor. In other words, changing them was the exclusive responsibility of the state.
At the end of August last year the municipality then proposed the same obligation again in a different form, with a decisive by the general manager Giacomo Parenti. Also in this case, a company that manages the scooter rental service, Bit Mobility, filed an appeal with the administrative court. In November, the TAR welcomed the precautionary request, that is, it confirmed that the appeal would be discussed on the fixed merits during a hearing on April 6, 2022, but without the provision of the municipality.
From 1 December, as required by the new rules of the municipality, the obligation to wear a helmet for all those who use the scooter came into force.
Together with the restrictive measure, the municipality has allocated 50 thousand euros to allow the owners of scooters or those who use a rental scooter to have a refund of 30 euros for the purchase of the helmet. In the first month, the local police made 61 fines. From January to today, the penalties have been much less, 47, mainly because, due to the new rules, many have decided to give up the rental.
The sentence that accepted the appeal of Bit Mobility was published on Tuesday 19 April. The judges established that the extension of the obligation to wear a helmet is not one of the obligations that can be imposed by “for reasons of public safety”.
In fact, the TAR has confirmed that a real law is needed to impose a helmet on everyone. Furthermore, on the basis of the documentation presented by the company that manages the service, the judges found a halving of the number of rentals starting from the entry into force of the provision. Mayor Nardella replied that he wanted to continue his commitment to introduce the obligation to wear a helmet and announced the appeal to the Council of State.
According to the councilor for mobility, Stefano Giorgetti, the ruling of the TAR “makes the need for Parliament’s intervention even more pressing”. Giorgetti notes that the judges have not investigated the reasons why a municipality like Florence, in an urban context with the characteristics of crowding, narrow spaces and cobblestones, cannot impose a measure that it considers adequate to protect the safety of people.
The extension of the helmet obligation also to adults was discussed in October during the conversion into law of the so-called “Infrastructure decree”, which provided for some significant changes. The law has established to reduce the maximum speed of vehicles from 25 to 20 kilometers per hour and to maintain the previously set limit of 6 kilometers per hour in pedestrian areas. It was also introduced, starting from 1 July 2022, the obligation to be equipped with arrows and stops, in addition to the lights already necessary and those already in circulation to be adapted to the new rules by 1 January 2024.
A ban on parking on pavements has also been introduced, except in areas specifically designated by the municipalities.
As regards rental scooters, the decree introduced the obligation to take a photograph, to prove that they have been parked correctly, a function already provided by most rental services. The law also specifies that scooters cannot circulate on pavements, where they can be accompanied by hand, and has confirmed the prohibition of driving in the opposite direction, “double except on roads with a cycle path”.
In the last two years, preventing Nardella has repeatedly extended the obligation to wear a helmet with the need for serious accidents. In early August 2021 had intervened after the death of a 25-year-old, Mohamed Fahim Abdul Rahuman, caused by a trauma to the head: the man had fallen from his scooter following a collision with a scooter. “We will not give up on this battle because the lives of many young people are at stake,” said the mayor. “The current rules are absolutely insufficient and inadequate.”
It is very complex to identify the data to analyze the actual danger of scooters compared to other vehicles. The only ones available at national level are those from ISTAT and are related to 2020, during an anomalous year due to travel operations and the publication of the pandemic, during travel related to the pandemic, during travel related to the pandemic to the pandemic: 564, with 551 injured and one dead.
Bicycle accidents, for which in the past there have been multiple similarities on whether to make the helmet mandatory, were 13,753 with 13,229 injured and 169 dead. There were more deaths, four, following accidents with so-called quadricycles, the small cars that can be driven without a B license, compared to those on scooters.
However, these data do not say everything: to have a more reliable comparison, the number of accidents should be compared to the total number of people who want that vehicle. The comparison between the bicycle and the scooter, for example the bicycle, has many limits because millions of people in Italy move, while the scooters are used by a minority and almost only in the big cities.
Among other things, the comparison will also be complicated with the data that will come in the coming months. As a note published in the database on the preliminary estimate of road accidents in 2021, starting from 2020 the statistical institute includes electric scooters in the definition of “velocipede”. The decision was made following the 2020 budget law which effectively equated electric scooters with bicycles. Due to the lack of reporting in recent years, however, it will be very difficult to accurately observe the trend of single-car accidents and understand if there is actually a “scooter emergency” as reported by many mayors in recent years.
One of the relevant issues today could however be more compliance with the rules already in force: among others, the prohibition of using the scooter up to 14 years, the obligation to fit the helmet up to 18 years, the prohibition of other people, the ‘obligation to wear a reflective vest or “high visibility retro reflective braces from half an hour after sunset, throughout the period of darkness”.