The legal status of electric scooter owners will differ little from the status of car owners

The legal status of owners of electric scooters and personal mobility devices (SIM) will differ little from the status of car owners, according to the draft road map of the Ministry of Transport. Citizens will be required to register their SIM cards in the federal register, stop at the request of the traffic police, undergo a medical examination to determine if they are intoxicated, and comply with strict regulations in the event of an accident. Among other things, a little understood system of “identification of SIM owners or drivers” is being introduced.

The Ministry of Transport, the department reported yesterday, sent for approval to the federal executive authorities a “road map” with measures aimed at “additional legal regulation of the development of SIM.” The ministry announced individual proposals included in the project at the end of July (see Kommersant, July 20). “Kommersant” managed to get acquainted with the text of the plan designed for 2023–2026.

With amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, officials propose to establish increased fines for SIM owners who violate the rules. Today the sanctions in Art. 12.29 and 12.30 of the code provide for a maximum fine for violators of 1.5 thousand rubles. The Ministry of Transport and a number of experts are confident that this is not enough.

On March 1, we would like to remind you that amendments to the traffic regulations regulating the rights and obligations of SIM users came into force: they were prohibited, in particular, from reaching speeds above 25 km/h and from driving onto highways. At the same time, the very concept of “personal mobility means” was introduced into the rules. The Ministry of Transport believes that it is now necessary to supplement the traffic rules with the term “a person using a SIM card to move”, the concepts of “ahead of a pedestrian” and “overtaking a pedestrian” (while driving a SIM card), as well as the conditions under which these maneuvers can be performed. The rules regulate the responsibilities of SIM owners involved in an accident; they will establish a direct ban on driving a SIM while intoxicated, as well as the obligation to undergo an intoxication test and comply with traffic police requirements to stop.

All accidents involving personal mobility devices will be reported by Rosstat. Now they are not taken into account separately in official statistics; the traffic police does the calculations independently. The Ministry of Health, together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Transport, will determine typical injuries sustained in accidents with electric scooters and develop treatment and rehabilitation schemes for victims. The Ministry of Education will be charged with introducing training in basic rules for using electric scooters into the school curriculum.

Amendments to the laws “On the Organization of Road Traffic” and “On Road Safety” will oblige individuals and legal entities to enter “information about SIM” into a special federal register. The system will resemble registering a vehicle with the traffic police: adding an electric scooter to the register (or changing the entry) will become a government service (a separate regulation will be written for the procedure). This is necessary to control electric scooters owned by individuals, as follows from the explanations of the Ministry of Transport: today they are not registered anywhere, unlike kick-sharing ones. It is also planned to develop a draft “regulatory act” that will set out the rules for “identifying persons who use SIM cards or owners of SIM cards for movement.” However, what exactly we are talking about is still unclear.

With amendments to construction SNIPs and sets of rules, the Ministry of Transport wants to consolidate the requirements for infrastructure for skiing, as well as “parameters for determining the optimal number” of parking lots. Regions, in accordance with the draft map, will develop plans for “the creation and integration of infrastructure for SIM into urban transport systems,” taking into account the future separation of pedestrian flows and electric scooters. “Model rules for the activities of commercial micromobility operators” will also be developed for the regions in order to use a “unified approach” when government agencies work with kick-sharing operators.

The Ministry of Transport recalled yesterday that foreign practice in regulating SIM is different. From September 1, for example, kick-sharing electric scooters are prohibited in Paris, while the possibility of driving on private ones is preserved. In the UK, on ​​the contrary, the movement of private electric scooters is prohibited, but the use of rental ones is allowed.

Discussions about tightening the rules and control over SIM, let us remind you, have been going on for several months against the backdrop of the explosive growth of the fleet of devices and the increase in accidents involving them (according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in six months there were more than 1 thousand accidents involving SIM, which is 181% more than a year earlier). Various proposals are made every now and then by State Duma deputies, public figures, representatives of kick-sharing companies and security officials. A separate problem is the chaotic movement of food delivery couriers using electric bicycles (often homemade) – their legal status has not been fully determined.

Ivan Buranov