A scooter is not entertainment, but a means of transportation.
Photo: Andrey ABRAMOV
I confess, I am a sinner: a week ago, for the first time in my life, I saddled this new vehicle of yours. I felt millennial, zoomer and hipster at the same time. But instead of the promised pleasure, I felt only a painful longing for the motorcycle. That’s where the real thrill of flying with the breeze is, and not your veggie rides.
But some find pleasure in it. And even, imagining themselves as real bikers, they ride a scooter together. Which is contrary not only to common sense, but also to rental office rules: “Riding an electric scooter with two or more people is prohibited,” reads a warning entry in the app. Losing control is much easier, insurance in an emergency is invalid. But they are running!
There is a ban, but no penalty. “Disorder!” – as always, reasoned our parliamentarians. And Valery Vasiliev, deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Economic Policy, said that the fine for riding together on an electric scooter should be 1000 rubles.
– Moving two people on a scooter is really dangerous. In kicksharing (rental offices, – Ed.), this problem is being solved: there is a certain algorithm that can correct an increase in mass. But when it comes to private scooters, it is impossible to track them,” Yang Haytseer, vice president of the National Automobile Union, said on KP radio (97.2 FM).
But here another question arises: how to catch lovers of “pair skating”? For this, the National Automobile Union, together with deputies of the State Duma, drew up a special bill. The authors of the document want to force private electric scooter owners to have numbers. To do this, your “two-wheeled friend” must be registered with the State Services. Then the scooter violations will be recorded by surveillance cameras. And scooter owners, like ordinary drivers, will receive fines through the public service portal.
– As long as we do not have such a fixation of violations, there will be no fines, – Ian Haytseer is sure.
The bill has already been submitted to the State Duma, soon the deputies will begin to consider it.
OPINION OF THE ECONOMY
A scooter is not entertainment, but a means of delivery.
Scooters are of course evil. But only if you use them incorrectly: hang out together, drunk, etc. However, with the right approach, this can be useful, even for the entire economy. Don’t we ban knives because they can cut you, or cars because they can crush you? ..
Professor, PhD in Economics Nikita Krichevsky talks about how scooters improve the quality of our lives.
“It always amazed me that in any situation, business, like water, will always find a crack. Companies in any situation are looking for where to grow, and unpredictable new segments are emerging. And in this context, I just want to talk about commercial micromobility.
It seems that for years everyone has been arguing about how fast kids should ride bikes in parks and how to limit the speed of electric scooters. These modes of transport are perceived as frivolous, often even childish. But then analysts discovered that bikes and scooters are in fact no longer entertainment, but part of the business model and delivery method.
For example, in Moscow in 2022 (apparently, this is only for a more or less warm season), orders worth 260 billion rubles were delivered using micromobile transport. and this is around 4% of the total revenue from retail and catering in the city. It is important to understand that this type of transport is superlocal: not much can be taken away, and therefore such delivery has a low average bill. Therefore, it scares me to even imagine how many orders this segment had in pieces, the scale is simply huge. It is also interesting that only 50,000 couriers in Moscow used scooters and bicycles – such a demand for fast travel is already comparable to the demand in New York.
Researchers, having studied Moscow and other megacities of the world, came to an interesting conclusion: micromobile transport has become an integral part of the city ecosystem for both citizens and businesses, everyone has already felt its value. Such lightning-fast delivery is expected to grow many times over in the coming years, and the service will only get better, but as they say, there are nuances:
1. Do not try to prohibit, slow down and limit this transport in some clumsy way, as is done in Mexico City and Hong Kong (therefore, the level of delivery in these megacities leaves much to be desired);
2. Micromobility must be properly stimulated: following the example of New York, it is enough to draw bicycle lanes in the right places and organize traffic so that the scooter or cyclist does not interfere with other traffic participants.
If at least these 2 basic conditions are met, and at essentially low cost for the city authorities, Moscow will continue to grow in high-speed delivery, from which everyone will benefit: companies will continue to make a profit, the city will continue to receive tax revenue, and citizens will continue to deliver their goods at the highest level. A true win-win situation.”
