Singapore’s government is requiring electric scooter (e-scooter) owners to register their devices and take out necessary insurance as it seeks to curb reckless riders.
According to Senior Minister of State for Transport Lam Pin Min, the government has accepted the Active Mobility Advisory Panel’s proposal to make e-scooter registration mandatory. The panel was formed in 2015 to formulate rules regarding the use of footpaths and cycling paths by cyclists and users of personal mobility devices (PMDs).
“Registering e-scooters will help deter reckless behaviour, afford more responsibility to the users and facilitate enforcement officers in tracking down errant users,” Lam was quoted as saying in Parliament by Straits Times.
Lam added that the registration process will be kept “as simple and low-cost as possible” and that the panel will look into issues such as speed limits and an insurance and compensation framework. The panel’s recommendations will be published by year-end.
The e-scooter registration move comes after registration of electric bikes was made mandatory, in order to prevent reckless riding and use of non-compliant devices. As of January, over 13,000 e-bikes were registered with the Land Transport Authority.
There were 110 accidents involving e-scooters from January to September 2017, according to government data. Around 30 of these incidents occurred on public paths and involved collisions between pedestrians and PMD users, while the others took place at road junctions and on roads when e-scooter users rode illegally alongside vehicles.
