Paris residents vote to ban e-scooter rentals by a landslide

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: You will have to rough it on foot – or maybe rent a bike – on your next tour of The City of Light. Nearly 90 percent of votes cast in a recent referendum were in favor of banning battery-powered scooters in the French capital. It is a sizable margin but perhaps the numbers reveal that most people did not seem to care one way or the other. Of the city's 1.38 million registered voters, only about 103,000 participated in the vote.

According to the BBC, Paris was one of the first major cities to adopt e-scooter rentals but it would seem as most believe they have done more harm than good. The publication cited mounting concerns over reckless driving of scooters and the fact that many riders do not wear helmets. Others took issue with parked scooters cluttering up parks and other public spaces, and taking up spaces typically reserved for cars or motorcycles. People as young as 12 can legally rent an e-scooter in Paris, the BBC noted.

Now, Paris is the first major European city to turn against the trendy mobility aids.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who supported the ban, announced the vote back in January. "I'm committed to respecting the choice of voters, purely and simply," the mayor said, adding that scooter rentals were both expensive and the cause of lots of accidents.

Three of the city's largest scooter rental providers – Tier, Dott and Lime – leveraged their reach on social media to try and get younger voters out to the polls. They even offered free rides to voters on voting day but clearly, the marketing push did not have much of an impact on voter turnout.

It is worth mentioning that the referendum only included e-scooter rentals, and that privately owned two-wheeler scooters were not involved.

Hidalgo told The Washington Post that Paris will ban self-service scooter rentals starting September 1, which is one day after the city's current contract with operators expires.

Image credit: One scooter by Let's Kick, Many scooters by niklasfotografics

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98174-paris-residents-vote-ban-e-scooter-rentals-landslide.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Good. These scooters are a scourge, driven by total arse hats that will happily run into you while glaring at you for daring to walk on the sidewalk, leave them in the road, and just in general pollute the city with their trash.

 

[BigMeatyClackers]

Was it tourists renting them? I could see why that would be annoying

 

[Kam7r]

Paris and the parisian area is a dumpster... I live less than 30km from the city, I leave ASAP... it's the WORST place to go if you come to France... plz spread the word, you're wasting money coming there when you could go almost everywhere in the country and you'll find something stunning ( nature, architecture from middleage, renaissance, anything ... )

 

[Hexic]

Paris and the parisian area is a dumpster... I live less than 30km from the city, I leave ASAP... it's the WORST place to go if you come to France... plz spread the word, you're wasting money coming there when you could go almost everywhere in the country and you'll find something stunning ( nature, architecture from middleage, renaissance, anything ... )

Agreed... Most of Europe is a better tourist destination than Paris. If you're planning a trip to visit the landmarks of Paris - go for it... But don't spend more than a day of travel. Not worth the time considering the numerous awesome alternatives in Europe.

 

[Uncle Al]

There have been several American cities that have also voted them out .....

 

[yRaz]

I hate them, in my city they're frequently left on laying on sidewalks or in peoples lawns. These need to go. I'm very in favor of privately owned e-bikes, I've built a few and they can be a lot of fun. For people who don't need, want or can't afford a car, e-bikes are a great and affordable option. These electric scooters basically no utilitarian use outside of getting from A to B. Also, the tires are so small at a large rock or crack in the side walk and flip you over.

My e-bike has a 40 mile range at it's top speed of 30MPH, much more than that if I'm going 10-15. I also have saddle bags for it so I can put a few small bags of groceries in it if I feel like. I mostly use it to ride around town when I don't feel like paying for parking in the city but it's perfectly capable of being a daily driver.

But these scooters are not that. People aren't going leave their personal e-bike laying in the street like people do with this scooters. They get ridden on the side walk, they cut off traffic in the streets. They're just a nuisance

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I hate them, in my city they're frequently left on laying on sidewalks or in peoples lawns. These need to go. I'm very in favor of privately owned e-bikes, I've built a few and they can be a lot of fun. For people who don't need, want or can't afford a car, e-bikes are a great and affordable option. These electric scooters basically no utilitarian use outside of getting from A to B. Also, the tires are so small at a large rock or crack in the side walk and flip you over.

My e-bike has a 40 mile range at it's top speed of 30MPH, much more than that if I'm going 10-15. I also have saddle bags for it so I can put a few small bags of groceries in it if I feel like. I mostly use it to ride around town when I don't feel like paying for parking in the city but it's perfectly capable of being a daily driver.

But these scooters are not that. People aren't going leave their personal e-bike laying in the street like people do with this scooters. They get ridden on the side walk, they cut off traffic in the streets. They're just a nuisance

My favorite are the people that take those scooters left on their property, rip out the controllers, and turn them into custom E bikes.

 

[about30ninjas]

Good. These scooters are a scourge, driven by total arse hats that will happily run into you while glaring at you for daring to walk on the sidewalk, leave them in the road, and just in general pollute the city with their trash.

One could say the same about cars, in fact there is more substance to state such: For example, death tole: car crashes, 1.35 million people die by car each year. Pollution - 1.4 billion tons of greenhouse gases are created by cars each year.

We should encourage alternate green methods of transport by building more bike lanes and investing more in public transport. Scooters are not the problem, bad city planning is.

 

[Inthenstus]

One could say the same about cars, in fact there is more substance to state such: For example, death tole: car crashes, 1.35 million people die by car each year. Pollution - 1.4 billion tons of greenhouse gases are created by cars each year.

We should encourage alternate green methods of transport by building more bike lanes and investing more in public transport. Scooters are not the problem, bad city planning is.

Paris has been a city for centuries.. “bad city planing” can’t be used here. To support scooters and bikes the entire city would need to be raised and rebuilt from the ground up.

 

[tellmewhy]

Freedom of movement is a fundamental right (only France doesn’t have it in the constitution) and this transport scheme has the least weight, which means that it produces the least pollution(more clean air), consumes the least energy(less co2) and the least space (more open roads and parking spaces for cars).

The only reason I can find for someone to vote against it is because they are afraid of pedestrian accidents.

 

[mistyrain]

One could say the same about cars, in fact there is more substance to state such: For example, death tole: car crashes, 1.35 million people die by car each year. Pollution - 1.4 billion tons of greenhouse gases are created by cars each year.

We should encourage alternate green methods of transport by building more bike lanes and investing more in public transport. Scooters are not the problem, bad city planning is.

Oh, come on. Stop withthe green s*it. 90% of the electricity comes from coil + this coil is mined with so may heavy machines on diesel + then the mass is cleaned to get the coil out of the dirt + then processed by a huge factories + then transported to the power plant + then count on the loss of the electricity being transvered via the valbe network = GREEN. Come on people, use your head and not the commercials (facepalm)

Also, what is this nonsense comparison with death toll.... how many cars are there and how many scooter? How can you compare ... OMG

 

[Belgeek]

Freedom of movement is a fundamental right (only France doesn’t have it in the constitution) and this transport scheme has the least weight, which means that it produces the least pollution(more clean air), consumes the least energy(less co2) and the least space (more open roads and parking spaces for cars).

The only reason I can find for someone to vote against it is because they are afraid of pedestrian accidents.

The e-scooters are not banned themselves. Only the shared ones which are usually used by people without knowledge of the law or any notions of road rules.
They are also a nuisance for people with mobility issues (wheelchairs, blind people, people with kids in a trolley).
And walking pollutes less than using those e-scooters btw. So instead of using that for one kilometer just walk.

 

[EndRessentiment]

Oh, come on. Stop withthe green s*it. {more blabbering} how many cars are there and how many scooter? How can you compare ... OMG

Sorry, but you really don't have a clue what you're talking about. There is actually a lot of casualties simply because of traffic powered by fossil fuels.
A lot of people are killed because of traffic pollution, for example in the UK: https://www.airclim.org/acidnews/air-pollution-traffic-kills-5000-year-uk
5000 a year for just one country. Compare that to ~1500 traffic accident deaths for the UK.

And remember, all fossil fuel deaths are preventable. We have enough other ways of generating power! And we could have been developing electric cars starting more than 100 years back, it's just that people like Henry Ford chose to ignore this option entirely after building a prototype.
At some point, electricity won't be powered by coal anymore. We're in a transition period. We can't magically get all our electricity from clean energy, but we're moving towards it.

A lot of people and companies don't want to change things, or just very very slowly. Just because of easy $... ignoring all the huge problems fossil fuels cause.

 

[Porkous]

"Leaders" Someone granted the right to direct the action others do not make for themselves.
Since the whole scheme did not have popularity. I wonder if the actions that lead to change the course of things, were actually biased and based on self interest.

Why ban the every e scooters?
All of them?! that's absurd to begging with. Not even grandma and grandpa would be against such progressive movement.

Do these people realize oil will vanish in like 12 years? and after that the whole world will pay high prices to few players?

 

[about30ninjas]

Paris has been a city for centuries.. “bad city planing” can’t be used here. To support scooters and bikes the entire city would need to be raised and rebuilt from the ground up.

You work with what you got, restrict scooters to bike lanes, expand bike lanes where possible.

Oh, come on. Stop withthe green s*it. 90% of the electricity comes from coil + this coil is mined with so may heavy machines on diesel + then the mass is cleaned to get the coil out of the dirt + then processed by a huge factories + then transported to the power plant + then count on the loss of the electricity being transvered via the valbe network = GREEN. Come on people, use your head and not the commercials (facepalm)

Also, what is this nonsense comparison with death toll.... how many cars are there and how many scooter? How can you compare ... OMG

Actually it's around 60 percent and declining. Should we get rid of electric cars because their electricity is mostly created from fossil fuels? It's a step in the right direction imo. In regards to comparing cars to scooters, who is more capable of inflicting more harm on the population? Besides being vastly larger and heavier, your argument falls flat when you examine the possible liabilities with a car compared to a scooter. Again, we should encourage alternate forms of transport, car culture needs to go.

 

[about30ninjas]

 

[Arbie]

Was it tourists renting them? I could see why that would be annoying

It sounds like landslides were renting them, which would be even more annoying.

 

[mistyrain]

Sorry, but you really don't have a clue what you're talking about. There is actually a lot of casualties simply because of traffic powered by fossil fuels.
A lot of people are killed because of traffic pollution, for example in the UK: https://www.airclim.org/acidnews/air-pollution-traffic-kills-5000-year-uk
5000 a year for just one country. Compare that to ~1500 traffic accident deaths for the UK.

And remember, all fossil fuel deaths are preventable. We have enough other ways of generating power! And we could have been developing electric cars starting more than 100 years back, it's just that people like Henry Ford chose to ignore this option entirely after building a prototype.
At some point, electricity won't be powered by coal anymore. We're in a transition period. We can't magically get all our electricity from clean energy, but we're moving towards it.

A lot of people and companies don't want to change things, or just very very slowly. Just because of easy $... ignoring all the huge problems fossil fuels cause.

Yes, you are correct in general. But you very comfortably are skipping the production of one EV. Even Toyota estimated that an EV starts with 4 years already poluted compared to a diesel car. All the aluminium. Have you even checked how much water is used to make the batteries? Now go and search in the news why people are scared for their water I germany due to the gigafactory of tesla. Oh, and we will recycle the batteries...yeah, righ, just as we did with all the plastic stuff that is in the ocean now.

My prefference would be that all those money went to hydrogen not the EVs.

 

[Hodor]

I always felt that coal powered scooters are the future.

 

[toooooot]

I would be interesting to hear what the same voters would say about bikes.
They seem to offer very similar use while being a twice the size of scooters.

 

[toooooot]

Yes, you are correct in general. But you very comfortably are skipping the production of one EV. Even Toyota estimated that an EV starts with 4 years already poluted compared to a diesel car. All the aluminium. Have you even checked how much water is used to make the batteries? Now go and search in the news why people are scared for their water I germany due to the gigafactory of tesla. Oh, and we will recycle the batteries...yeah, righ, just as we did with all the plastic stuff that is in the ocean now.

My prefference would be that all those money went to hydrogen not the EVs.

All heil hydro!
My skepticism regarding it is at 100%. it is dangerously explosive. In our developed world protected by thousands of safety regulations, hydrogen pumps, specialized trucks would cost billions upon billions. It could bankrupt a country. Notice how slow companies that develop hydrogen cars are.
A lot of hydrogen believers lost faith.