Chaos due to e-bikes: Cities are fighting them, Ostrava has completely banned them in the center
Many cities solve the problem by preparing special parking lots for scooters. This is an example of Hradec Králové, Olomouc or Prague 8. “We have 26 such places in Karlín and Libni. We had the parking spaces marked on previously unused parts of the road in the place of yellow lines and traffic shadows, so that, with some exceptions, we did not have to remove classic parking spaces,” explained Martin Jedlička, chairman of the Prague 8 Transport Commission.
Radical ban in Ostrava
At the beginning of October, Ostrava proceeded to a drastic solution – banned electric bikes and scooters in the city center. “The original intention was to limit only electric scooters, which the law does not allow, you cannot limit the drive to just one means, so the ban also applied to electric bikes, but we will discuss it further,” explained the mayor of Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz, Petr Veselka.
Electric scooters are flooding Czech cities. However, serious injuries are also increasing
Shared electric scooters did not return to Hradec Králové this year. The companies Bolt and Lime did not agree on terms after negotiations with the municipality. According to Deputy Mayor Pavel Marek, they did not want to bear the penalties for improperly stored scooters. “We rescheduled the contracts and the company said that the conditions were unacceptable to them,” Marek said even before the holidays.
Even their operators are trying to partially mitigate the problems with scooters. “Our application will no longer let you park if you don’t park the scooter in a fixed parking space. If he were to throw the scooter out of the way, his ride would not end and he would continue to pay,” commented Soňa Stloukalová, manager of the Bolt company for the Czech Republic.
Alcohol and night driving
At the same time, in an October interview for Pražský deník, she admitted another problem that operators and people are facing. And that is driving under the influence of alcohol. “That is why we are preparing the so-called drunk test. In some areas, during the night hours, the user would have to go through a simple game before getting on the scooter, which would determine if his reactions are in order,” informed Stloukalová.
Bolt Platform Country Manager: We are developing a drunk test for scooter users
It is driving under the influence of alcohol that is most often responsible for the fact that scooters remain in bizarre places, but also for the number of injuries. They handled a lot of such cases in České Budějovice. “Sometimes the eco-bike ends up in the Malša or Mlýnská stoka, and people have even taken pictures of them on the roof of the garage or in the park on a tree,” Věra Školková, spokeswoman for the České Budějovice police officers, said already in the summer.
However, the most common offense is driving on the sidewalk, which, according to the regulations, should only be used by pedestrians. “The pedestrian is not prepared for such a collision and, of course, does not have protective equipment such as a helmet and the like. People of retirement age in particular are at risk of serious injury in a collision,” said Barbora Truksová Zuchová, a doctor from the South Moravian ambulance service, while driving on the sidewalk.
A big change for owners of e-scooters: A compulsory insurance policy will be required for powerful machines
For riding on the sidewalk, eco-joggers are subject to the same penalty as, for example, cyclists. Mostly in the low thousands of crowns. At the same time, electric scooters can reach much higher speeds. In the already mentioned České Budějovice, they therefore reduced the maximum speed on them to fifteen kilometers per hour.
Only with mandatory warranty
Legislators are also thinking about eco-scooters, and that is why they will prepare a law according to which the owners of these means of transport must have compulsory insurance.
“It will be similar to motorbikes or cars. In August this year, they also voted for this obligation in the European Union. Thanks to this, it will be more efficient to pay compensation to those injured in accidents, for which riders on electric scooters or bicycles were responsible, explained Jan Matoušek, director of the Czech Insurance Association, a month ago.