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Italy will require people riding electric scooters to wear helmets and carry insurance to clamp down on what the Italian government describes as “reckless behaviour” that turned streets into a “jungle”.
But dismayed e-scooter operators like Uber-backed Lime, US-based Bird and Franco-Dutch Dott warn that the new conditions — set to be approved by Italian parliament in the coming days — will seriously depress demand in one of the most important European markets after Paris banned the two-wheelers in a referendum last year.
“It’s implicit sabotage,” said Andrea Giaretta, vice-president for western Europe at Dott, which has 9,000 e-scooters across 20 Italian cities and towns. “These rules are unworkable. It will boomerang . . . and make sharing less sustainable.”
Giorgio Cappiello, head of public affairs for Bird Italy, called the new rules “completely ideological” and warned it could reduce demand for the company’s 15,000 e-scooters in Italy by up to 70 per cent, raising questions over the future of such operations.
“As in all industries, if the regulatory framework is hostile for private companies, they leave,” he said.
Italy has around 55,000 e-scooters available for rent in cities and towns, offering what advocates call an affordable, green transport option. Favourable weather and high volumes of tourists have led to the rapid growth of this sector.
But the proliferation of two-wheelers has also triggered a local backlash, especially in tourist hubs like Rome, where e-scooters are left scattered on narrow pavements, and riders weave amid the traffic congestion.
Accidents involving e-scooters have been rising steadily, with 21 people killed last year and 182 pedestrians hit compared with just nine fatalities and 127 injured pedestrians in 2021, according to the national statistics agency, Istat.
Around half of thousands of e-scooter accidents recorded each year involved foreign riders — mainly tourists and migrants working for food delivery services, Istat said.
Transport minister Matteo Salvini has vowed to tackle what he called a “jungle in the streets” created by e-scooter driving. He said the new rules would “end impunity and reckless behaviour” with an eye to public welfare.
“Everyone’s lives and safety depend on it,” Salvini wrote in a social media post on Monday.
Under the new law, all e-scooter riders will be required to wear protective helmets — bringing them in line with what Vespa and other moped riders have been obliged to wear since 2000.
Operators say this is likely to reduce usage by 25 to 70 per cent given the challenges of providing helmets, which they argue are unnecessary anyway given that the e-scooters cannot travel above 20km per hour.
“On a scooter you can’t attach a helmet — we wouldn’t know where to put it,” said Dott’s Giaretta, adding that most accidents “do not involve the skull but the face, legs, arms and abdomen”.
Enrico Stefàno, a senior public policy manager for Lime — which operates 10,000 e-scooters in 12 Italian cities, said the company could attach helmets to their scooters at an initial cost of around €1mn.
But he said that e-scooter use would likely drop by around 25 per cent as helmets would prove tempting targets for theft, and be easily damaged or vandalised.
“In the short-run this can translate into fewer rides,” Stefano said. “We don’t want to leave Italy or disinvest or lay off anyway, but it’s clear that this is a measure that has an impact.”
Italy will also require e-scooter riders to carry third-party liability insurance to cover pedestrians and others hurt in accidents, which shared-mobility companies say will be more costly than the coverage they now provide for their users.
Andrea Giuricin, a transport economist at the University of Milan-Bicocca who also serves as a consultant to the sector, said operators would continue lobbying for an easing of the new law, even after the bill is adopted.
“Due to the fact that they are global players, they will continue to operate making losses,” Giuricin said. “They will not close tomorrow, but they will try to change the law.”
