Sandra angrily pushed the orange Alert Us button. His mum tripped over an electric scooter parked in the middle of a sidewalk in Brussels and ended up in the emergency room with a broken nose and an open wound. Sandra now wants regulations to be put in place regarding the parking of these electric vehicles. An ordinance is in preparation, but some Brussels municipalities are not ready to install mandatory load shedding zones.
“We are very angry at the chaotic parking of scooters and the lack of respect from certain users”, Sandra writes to us via the orange Alert us button. His mother recently fell violently on the sidewalk near the Montgomery roundabout in Brussels because of a badly parked scooter.
Danielle was coming out of the subway entrance to catch her bus. As she looked to the side to see if her bus was coming, she was blinded by the sun and didn’t see the scooter parked right in the middle of the sidewalk. She tripped over the mobility device and tripped. Results ? Nose fracture, open wound and emotional shock for this 77-year-old lady. “She was coming back from a walk with friends. As she was alone, she was panicked, but someone came to her aid. A person we thank by the way. She called the police”Sandra tells us.
Once the police were there, they saw Danielle’s injuries and had to call an ambulance. “She ended up in the emergency room”protests the Brussels woman who does not accept to see her mother in such a state. “She’s a healthy person, she has good vision, she’s a very able-bodied person who does a lot of activities and walks. She has no mobility problems, she has no just didn’t see the misplaced scooter in the middle of the sidewalk”she continues.
For Sandra, the problem comes mainly from scooters which are “often badly parked.” “Unfortunately, these situations occur more and more regularly. And when it creates such accidents, it is really unacceptable.” It is now waiting for concrete measures to be taken and for the parking of these electric vehicles to be better regulated. “Some users need to be made aware who park their scooters haphazardly. Scooter companies should try to do something to stop this from happening”she believes.
Employees circulate day and night
However, at Dott, employees circulate day and night to relocate poorly parked scooters in the center of Brussels. “During the day, there are bikers, that is to say couriers in electric cargo bikes. And at night, the teams are in electric vans”details Clara Philippot, city manager of Dott, a self-service electric scooter company in Brussels.
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This manager is well aware of the parking problem but, in the Brussels region, more than 25,000 scooters and shared bicycles circulate. It is therefore impossible to list them all. “Users will park in places that will interfere with pedestrians and it is impossible for us to pass after each trip to move troublesome vehicles, because there are too many trips.”
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Pending the arrival of a regulatory framework that would govern the parking of scooters, the puzzle continues. In Evere, for example, the municipality has installed around fifty load shedding zones. “The idea is that scooter users can, after use, come and drop them off in dedicated areas and not prevent pedestrian traffic on public roads”underlines Pascal Freson, alderman of Mobility in Evere.
The space is delimited by markings on the ground and a scooter logo is also drawn there. Problem ? These areas are an incentive, but are not mandatory. Some people don’t respect them. And in a few months, the municipality of Evere has already imposed 150 fines on operators.
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If this municipality has decided to take the lead, this is however not the case for all. For the moment, only Koekelberg and Berchem-Sainte-Agathe have followed suit. But ideally, Dott hopes to see dedicated parking areas flourish in the 19 Brussels municipalities. “All the operators are currently pushing for parking areas. The center is saturated, it absolutely must be regulated. Once this is in place, it will simplify things”assures Clara Philippot.
An order is in preparation. But it does not provide for anything mandatory for these parking areas. Some municipalities are still reluctant. “The ordinance gives the possibility of introducing parking zones and many municipalities are getting started. We have also planned subsidies at regional level (…) Some municipalities want to move forward with parking zones but a system was also needed for municipalities that have not yet set up parking areas. This requires investment and not all municipalities are ready to do so yet”explains Elke Van den Brandt, the Brussels Minister for Mobility.
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Ultimately, the goal is still to make these parking areas mandatory. It will therefore be impossible to park your scooter elsewhere. But no deadline is mentioned at the moment.