The Catalan metropolis is an ideal place for electric scooter users. Barcelona, which lies in a mostly flat landscape, has more than 250 kilometers of cycle paths and, thanks to the Mediterranean climate, it only rains 55 days a year. Therefore, since the covid-19 pandemic, the number of people who travel around the city by e-scooter has increased four times faster than the number of those who prefer to cycle, according to The Guardian newspaper, Barcelona City Hall reports.
Electric scooters can reach speeds of up to 40 kilometers per hour, making them faster than bicycles. However, they are also more dangerous in the event of a traffic accident. They are also very often chosen by bag and cell phone thieves when fleeing the scene of the crime.
An unacceptable threat. Melbourne has banned shared electric scooters
The world
The town hall therefore decided to reduce their maximum speed to 25 kilometers per hour. If some electric scooters exceed this required speed, the city hall will consider them as motorcycles, and thus their users will have to have a driver’s license.
“These changes try to make users behave more responsibly while driving,” said Adrià Gomila from Barcelona City Hall.
Barcelona is not the only Spanish city that is trying to limit the use of electric scooters. Madrid recently decided to revoke the license of three companies that could operate scooter rentals, so they should disappear from the streets of Madrid by the end of October.
Shared electric scooters will disappear from Madrid
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