From today Tel Aviv Municipality has introduced new regulations requiring electric scooter ridesharing rental companies Lime, Bird and Wind to attach license numbers to their e-scooters. As of yesterday, most of the scooters already bore license numbers.
The new regulation follows a sharp rise in the number of people being injured by scooters. The Tel Aviv Municipality has introduced a new 106 app for people to report incidents including scooters being illegally ridden on sidewalks. Reports must include a photograph of the offender and the e-scooter company will then be required to take action against the subscriber. For a first offense a person will receive a warning, for the second offense a two month ban from using the company's e-scooters and for the third offense a permanent ban.
The municipality has a unit of 22 inspectors, whose main focus is to ensure that e-scooters do not ride on sidewalks. The inspectors are able to issue tickets for sidewalk violations only the police have the authority to issue tickets to riders not wearing helmets, as required by law. 21,000 tickets for sidewalk offenses were issued in 2019.
On February 1, Tel Aviv Municipality will introduce more new regulations banning electric scooters and bikes from certain busy areas such as Tel Aviv Port and lowering the speed limit in some areas from 25 kilometers per hour to 15 kilometers per hour. From June 15, the e-scooter rental companies will be required to provide riders with helmets.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 1, 2020
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