ZAGREB, December 13, 2019 – The GLAS opposition party has sent to parliament a bill of amendments to the law on road traffic safety to regulate electric scooters, which the current law list among pedestrians, and prevent accidents.
GLAS warns that for driving an electric scooter, some of which can reach a speed of 40/h, it is not required to have a driver’s licence, helmet or high visibility vest, and that they drive without restrictions on the pavement, bike paths, roads and motorways.
GLAS proposes introducing the name “small electric vehicle” for electric scooters, and welcomes their use as they do not pollute the environment or congest traffic.
“Some countries have noticed in time the increase in the number of these vehicles and have regulated them by law. Given the trends, there will be more and more of them here as well, so it’s better to immediately regulate them and prevent possible accidents, instead of changing the law in fast track procedure,” MP Anka Mrak Taritaš told the press on Thursday.
MP Nada Turina Đurić said having a completely unregulated area was worse than having a poor law.
“With the amendments, we wish to restrict the behaviour of these new participants in traffic because in Zagreb there are already thousands of them. We propose that they must use existing bike paths, so we call on cities to designate more bike paths. Where there are no bike paths, they should use the pavement, and only when neither is available, they would be allowed to use roads, but only in urban areas, definitely not in long-distance traffic. That’s why we call on local governments to take a more active part in regulating this type of traffic,” she said.
The bill bans electric scooter drivers from consuming alcohol, obliges them to wear high visibility vests and helmets and to light their vehicles.
“We wish to limit the speed and increase safety, we wish to legalise all that because now, if an accident happens, it’s not clear how to treat scooter drivers,” Turina Đurić said.
More transportation news can be found in the Lifestyle section.
