Hire electronic scooters are prohibited in the American city of Melbourne because they pose unfavorable safety risks.
The state’s government made the right decision after it first announced the scooters in February 2022 and declared they would conduct a two-year test.
However, the government has been enraged and complained about by thousands of accidents since then.
Melbourne’s governor said he was “fed up” with the negative behaviour of some bike people.
“Too many people [are] riding on footpaths. People don’t park them properly. They’re tipped, they’re scattered around the city like confetti, like rubbish, creating tripping hazards,” Nicholas Reece told local radio station 3AW.
After a brief period of operation, Melbourne is the latest city in the world to stop renting scooters, which can travel up to 26 km/h ( 16 mph ). Last September, the French capital Paris outlawed them, and Mr. Reece claimed he wanted to imitate” the Paris opportunity.”
On Tuesday night, native councillors voted 6-4 to almost instantly outlaw the scooters.
Within 30 days, Lime and Neuron, the scooter ‘ owners, have been given the order to get rid of them.
The businesses had been campaigning greatly in recent days, urging customers to petition the government, but they still had six weeks left on their contracts to run the vehicles.
Both businesses claimed to have made significant investments in recent months to increase health and laws governing the use of scooters, with Neuron setting AI cameras on the scooters to stop abuse.
On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the city council decried the blanket ban, saying they had been in discussions with town officials about introducing measures like limiting bicycle use to less crowded areas of the city or creating riding zones.
This goes beyond the state government’s proposed changes, according to Jayden Bryant of Neuron, who had previously covered American media.
” It’s very odd that a different [delayed ] proposal for the introduction of new e-scooter technology can change to become a proposal for a ban,” he said.
Since the prosecution’s founding in February 2022, about 1,500 Lime and Neuron scooters have been distributed throughout the area.
Prior to now, the Melbourne town council had claimed motorbikes had increased the state’s use of public transportation and had increased its carbon footprint by more than 400 tons.
But there has also been growing facts of the program’s defects. One of the town’s main facilities, the Royal Melbourne hospital, published a report in December 2023 which found near to 250 scooter-riders presented at its emergency department with wounds in 2022. A majority of these concerned elements such as alcohol, speeding and never wearing a helmet.
According to a doctor spokesman, e-scooter accidents have also resulted in fatalities and brain injuries, with the majority of the injuries affecting younger patients.