I am not a bansturbator. I take the view that you live your life as you see fit, providing you do no harm. However, when it comes to e-scooters, I detest the things and I have some sympathy with the Parisians.
Paris has become the first city in the world to vote to ban self-hire electric scooters after a series of fatal crashes across Europe.
In a move likely to be studies with huge interest in the UK, the French capital rejected the controversial scooters by a 90 per cent majority in a referendum on Sunday.
It comes after a number of crashes involving the vehicles in recent years, with Paris and other European cities including London also complaining about dumping.
In 2019, a rider was hit by a van and killed, becoming the first e-scooter fatality in Paris.
There are currently around 15,000 e-scooters in Paris that can be picked up using a mobile app and then left anywhere, including in the River Seine.
There are two problems here. Firstly the fact that they are ridden badly – and worse are the ones that are privately owned because you don’t need to have a driving licence to access them and they are not restricted in any way. The other is as mentioned, they are abandoned wherever the users decide to dump them.
In principle, they could be useful for short journeys. In practice the appalling level of incompetent riding makes them a menace. If the roads were properly policed with the relevant road traffic laws adequately enforced, maybe things would be different. If people realised that they could be prosecuted and lose their licence, thy might behave differently – or not.
As it is, maybe banishing them from the public highway is the right approach even though bans stick in my craw.
But shortly after 10pm on Sunday, a Ville de Paris spokesman confirmed ‘the no vote won with 90 per cent of the vote’.
That’s pretty conclusive. That said, it was a small turnout so maybe most people aren’t that bothered.
In this case there is a good reason for the ban. The majority of cases are people wanting to ban anything that they themselves don’t like.
The ‘regulate everything’ mentality, besides banning things, also takes away the need for responsible behaviour – it’s sufficient to be able to say (while standing amidst the wreckage) “not my fault, I followed all the rules”. Then when something new and unregulated appears, these are the results.
I’m a liberal not an anarchist, so accept that some regulation is necessary. On the roads, for example, I am comfortable with a basic demonstration of competence before using a motor vehicle on what is a shared space, just as I am comfortable with some level of regulation regarding the use of that shared space. However, it’s gone way beyond that. Somewhere between personal responsibility and a light touch regulation is a happy medium. We lost that somewhere along the way.
It seems surprising with the unfathamable urgency to get cars off the roads, an alternative is not seen as something that can be worked on, but must just be banned because a few people have been hurt, largely because of their own stupidity
Or the stupidity of others. In this country, common law principles could be used. Someone mows you down with a scooter, sue them for the tort. Not so in France where they have a different system.
Perhaps the biggest problem I have with them – apart from the way they are ridden – is that they are inherently unstable. They are restricted to the same power output as an electrically assisted bicycle, yet the latter draws no attention to itself because it’s just another pushbike. Yes, I know, the usual moans about cyclists and all, but a bicycle has bigger wheels so is more easily able to cope with the appalling road surfaces we have.
The biggest reason people want to see them banned is because they have had to take so much avoiding action to escape the lunatics riding them. But see above regarding common law proinciples.
Back when I used to cycle commute I used my ride to work to supplement my triathlon training. If I spotted another cyclist up ahead I would do my best to chase them down. One day I decided to get all competetive on a lady on a sit up and beg bike with a basket on the front. Despite being on a carbon fibre road bike I had a devil of a job closing her down and worked up a right sweat. As you have probably guessed, she was on a battery assisted bike. They were a new thing back then so I hadn’t seen that many about.
Just ban them from the pavement. Job done. Natural selection will take care of any problems.