On a road by Rome’s traffic-clogged Piazza Venezia, an e-scooter rider weaves through a crowd of pedestrians, who in turn are trying not to trip over a scooter dumped on the pavement. At the adjacent crossing, two e-scooter riders whiz through a red light as another glides around the curve with his passenger capturing the journey on her mobile phone.
Such scenes have become common in the Italian capital and other towns and cities in recent years, amid the boom in popularity of rented e-scooters. But now the government is getting tough on wayward use of the vehicles as part of a broader overhaul of the highway code.
“No more wild scooters,”said transport minister Matteo Salvini last week after parliament gave approval to a bill requiring riders to wear helmets and be insured. The vehicles will also have to have number plates, and riders will be banned from pedestrianised streets, cycle lanes and non-urban roads. On top of that, there will be stiff fines for rogue parking.
As in other European countries, e-scooters have become a nifty, cheap and environmentally friendly mode of urban transport. But as uptake in Italy has increased, so has the number of accidents. Injuries from road accidents involving e-scooters rose to 3,365 in 2023, with 21 deaths – up from 2,929 injuries and 16 deaths in 2022, according to Istat, the national statistics agency.
The vehicles have divided opinion between those who consider them to be a menace and those who appreciate them for their convenience. “E-scooters are a disaster,” said Giulia Reuchreano, manager of a bar off Piazza Venezia. “They don’t respect the rules – you see two, sometimes three, people on them. At night, you see drunk people on them. They use them like a toy. But I have to say, and don’t take this the wrong way, but it mostly seems to be tourists.”
Pointing towards a haphazardly parked cluster of rented e-scooters, pedestrian Marco Bruno said: “It’s boorish. I agree with the rules, especially the requirement to wear a helmet. It’s OK to have them here, but riders need to use them with care.”
It is unclear how some of the new rules, for example the insurance and number plate requirements, will be applied or whether rented e-scooters will be distinguished from privately owned ones.
Either way, the move has not gone down well with e-scooter rental companies. They argue that the rules are too punitive and say that their vehicles are already equipped with speed limits. “It’s as if they are SUVs,” Giorgio Cappiello, from rental company Bird, told La Repubblica. “We already pay insurance,” he added, while pointing to a European court of justice ruling which stipulated that electric vehicles with maximum speeds of 20km/h are exempt from insurance.
The companies have warned of the ramifications on jobs and the prospect of having to shut up shop in Italy.
Their main concern appears to be the helmet obligation. “It will have immense repercussions on the entire system,” Michele Francione, operations director at Bit Mobility, told La Nazione newspaper. “Eighty per cent of our users are occasional clients who take an e-scooter at the last-minute, maybe because there are no other transport options. It’s unthinkable that someone will bring a helmet from home.”
Andrea Giaretta at Dott, which is active in 20 Italian cities, said that 3,000 jobs were at risk, adding that the scooters are equipped with technology, such as powerful brakes and indicators, which help to curtail habits that cause serious accidents.
Other countries have also clamped down on e-scooter use. In May last year, rented e-scooters were banned in Paris after a referendum, while Madrid followed suit in September this year.
The use of e-scooters and bikes boomed during the coronavirus pandemic, and both were promoted as a sustainable modes of transport by Rome’s former mayor, Virginia Raggi. But some riders have sullied their image, including the American tourist who caused thousands of euros worth of damage in 2022 after hurling her e-scooter down the famous Spanish Steps.
Andrea Valle, who rides his own e-scooter around the city, said the new rules will now make privately-owned vehicles unusable. “I agree that we need to regulate things but there are some requirements that will discourage people from using this form of mobility,” he said. “I’m OK with the number plate and insurance, but I also need to add indicators to the scooter. I think this will be more dangerous for us, too, as we can only ride on the roads.”
Valle said he always rides carefully. “Especially in a city like Rome, you have to be attentive. But there are so many problems with public transport – this scooter is a saviour.”
