The drivers of electric scooters kill people to death. How to deal with it?

The development of modern technology has led tothe inevitable emergence of new modes of transport. One of them is the electric scooters, which at first flooded the entire state of California (USA), where they feed a special passion for everything electric, and then literally seized large European countries and this year received rapid development in Russia. But this is perhaps the case when the world was not ready for such a turn of events.

To begin with, in almost all countries there is nowell-formed legal framework for the elektrosamokatov. Therefore, their “drivers” feel completely unpunished, moving along the automobile roads in the left lane (well, if not in the oncoming lane), going round pedestrians and not using at least some means of security. During my travels in Europe this year, only in Switzerland, I saw a neat driver of an electric scooter - wearing a helmet, elbow pads and all the chores.

In other cases, electric scooters leadugly. In Paris alone, the number of such vehicles has already exceeded 20,000, a similar situation is observed in other countries. This would not be a particular problem, only the electric scooters are capable of accelerating to a speed of 35 km / h, and their “pilots” do not always have the desire to wear the same helmet, much less move in a special lane. Hence, there is a big risk for motorists who may not notice a small object on the road, but even more so for crossings.

What are dangerous electric scooters

Electric scooters can often be found on ordinaryfootpaths, and in fact it’s like putting cars on public sidewalks. Drivers of scooters do not hesitate to accelerate to 20-30 km / h, feeling on the racetrack and overtaking pedestrians one after another. Therefore, they are often responsible for road accidents: for example, this year in the same Paris, the driver of an electric scooter killed an 81-year-old pedestrian to death.

In 2018, a similar case occurred inMoscow, where a 34-year-old Muscovite crushed a pedestrian - an 88-year-old man. He ran an Icewheel S8 electric scooter, which weighs 18.5 kg and can reach a speed of 35 km / h. For an elderly person, this collision was fatal.

In fact, cases of accidents with electric scootersmany in all of Europe. The media often writes only about fatal incidents, but in fact, almost every day, drivers of such scooters make raids on crossings.

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Crash test of a motorcycle in a collision with a car at a speed of 40 km / h

How can I solve the problem

It seems so far the real danger of electroscootersaware only in their "homeland" - in California. So, in 2018, San Francisco authorities ordered the rental of electric scooters to remove them from the city streets. Officials now issue permits that the SFMTA transport authority considers. The reason was the complaints of residents who claim that drivers drive fast on the sidewalks and park in the wrong places. This measure allowed to remove little-known start-ups for the rental of electric scooters from the streets, but there are no measures regarding the drivers themselves. They don't even have to wear a helmet when driving!

In Spain, after another fatal accidentwith the participation of a pedestrian and an electric scooter, they also thought about a settlement - the authorities want to limit the speed of such vehicles to 25 km / h. As well as to oblige the drivers of scooters to pass tests for alcohol and drugs. But there is still no necessary legal basis for this.

Scooter drivers are also in danger

In fact, piloting scooters too farnot so safe. There are often cases when the electric scooter suddenly begins to slow down for the owner (and this is at maximum speed). The result is often sad: the driver “rolls” over the scooter and gets under the nearest car.

Why it happens? The build quality of electric scooters leaves much to be desired. A cable may break, which connects the Hall-sensor motor-wheel with the controller, and if this happens in motion, the scooter will perform emergency braking. Or there will be problems with the power cables that power the electric motor. Well, the banal damage to the wheel at high speed, too, has not been canceled.

And at the beginning of this year, the American companyZimperium, which specializes in the security of mobile devices, found a “hole” in the firmware of electric scooters, which allowed anyone to gain remote access to the device. The problem is that the password is checked only by the mobile application, but the scooter accepts commands from any device without a password. Of course, the radius of remote access is not so great (about 100 meters), but this is enough for the owner of the scooter to get physical damage.

Is legislative regulation necessary?

Obviously, without a legislative base, driversscooters will continue to mess on the roads. At a minimum, it is necessary to limit their speed and movement on the sidewalks, and to force drivers to wear elements of protection, as it was recently implemented in the same New York (ideally, in general, the right to issue - but this is still from science fiction). But it is not yet clear when this will happen: the authorities of most cities do not suspect yet how much the electric scooters (more precisely, their “pilots) complicate life for pedestrians and drivers of cars.

Electric scooters get so widespread that this segment sooner or later will have to be settled by law. And this is not only about Russia, but also about the whole world: I often come across irresponsible drivers of such transport during business trips in Europe. Even in Spain, where there are many tracks for scooters, they still travel to the roadway, causing accidents with cars and pedestrians. And the lethal outcomes of such accidents show how dangerous it is: after all, a scooter with a driver weighs about 100 kg, and if it drives at a speed of 35 km / h and crashes into another person, the degree of danger is very high. It is necessary to regulate, but it is not yet clear how. It may be worthwhile to impose age restrictions or even issue rights to operate an electric scooter. I am sure that in the coming years we will see something similar in the countries of Europe and the USA, ”says Renat Grishin, editor-in-chief of Hi-News.ru.

The head of the i10.ru media group, Mikhail Korolev, adheres to a similar position:

Of course, lawlessness on the roads fromThere should be no drivers for electric scooters, but I still cannot imagine how this will be regulated. Well, do not forget that all the troubles are not from the scooters themselves - the problem is the degree of adequacy of the people who manage them.

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