The death of a woman hit by a scooter electric in Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) has put on the table the need to regulate, with haste, the use of the so-called vehicles of personal mobility. The assistant director-general for mobility Directorate-General of Traffic (DGT), Jorge Ordás, has explained in statements to THE COUNTRY that the agency is already working on its regulation and that they will have the consideration of “vehicle electric propulsion”. The legislation will remove these devices from the sidewalks to avoid conflicts with pedestrians and limit their maximum speed to 25 kilometres per hour.
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The judge is investigating whether the driver of the scooter who killed an elderly woman consulted Google Maps a death of a pedestrian hit by a powered scooter for the first time in Spain The judge is investigating whether the driver of the scooter who killed an elderly woman consulted Google Maps
last August, a woman 90 years old walking with the assistance of a walker for the central stretch of the rambla del Carme of the Catalan town. It is a space reserved for pedestrians, although Esplugues not available for now ordinance on scooters, electric and, therefore, does not prohibit its use. Two young men on board a scooter electric —the driver was manipulating, allegedly, a mobile phone— the coiled. The woman fell and her head hit against the floor. A few days later died in the hospital. This is the first death known of a pedestrian by the use of a scooter in Spain, confirms the DGT.
two years Ago, when they began to become visible in the big cities, DGT adopted a statement which referred to these vehicles and that has been the basis to some local Councils —such as Madrid or Arzbet Barcelona— to draft ordinances based on their needs. There is by now, however, a state law that regulates its use. “This case puts in evidence that is very necessary and urgent that something be done and that the scooters out of the sidewalks. If the DGT regulates it will be great, because right now we have an immense vacuum,” she explains, also in conversation with this newspaper, the mayor of Esplugues, Laura Diaz.
Traffic has picked up the gauntlet and is already working on a royal decree that should be ready by next summer. One of the essential points of the state standard is that the scooters electric not be allowed to move on the sidewalks —as is already the case in Barcelona and Madrid for “a matter of coexistence.” In addition to expelling them from the natural space of the pedestrian, the DGT provides for limiting the speed of these vehicles to 25 miles per hour, in the path of Brussels.
“In a city, the difference between the 50 and the 25 per hour is the difference between death and life”, explains the deputy director of mobility, which encourages users to not buy skates with an excessive power. Traffic has been reported that some suppliers sell gadgets with up to two engines that can reach speeds much higher, of up to 80 kilometers per hour. “Are mopeds in disguise, but the manufacturer sells them as vehicles of personal mobility and is relieved of certain paperwork,” explains Ordás.
Traffic believes that the death of the wife of Esplugues is the first case of a pedestrian who died by the trampling of a powered scooter. However, no specific data is available about the entire event on the streets between pedestrians and users of these vehicles. The number of incidents, warn sources of the prosecutor’s office, is on the rise in the same measure in which they grow the units sold. For this Christmas, it is expected that the powered scooter is one of the gifts star.
Alfonso Perona, attorney and expert in urban mobility, believes that the criterion to remove the scooters from the sidewalks is successful. But he warns that, without a “surveillance stubborn” by the police, the local regulations may fall on deaf ears. Perona adds that this type of vehicles also raise a debate on the civil liability in case of accident and about the “cheating” of some devices to gain speed. “We value little the risks of speed. Our body is not prepared to have an impact at 20 or 30 miles per hour.”
