Over the past 5 years, courts have heard about 130 cases of accidents involving e-scooters — 34% of the total number occurred in 2023, according to Opendatabot.
As of August 2024, about 111 administrative and 22 criminal cases were recorded in the «Babushka» court register due to accidents involving scooters.
In the first 6 months of this year, 16 administrative and 3 criminal cases were opened due to accidents with electric scooters — more than in the entire year of 2021.
Among the cases where the driver of an electric scooter is to blame for an accident, the most common are — hitting a pedestrian or damaging property (in such cases, drivers were fined from 340 to 850 UAH).
At the same time, the number of cases involving accidents in which e-scooter drivers were drunk is growing. In one case, a rider who hit a woman on the sidewalk had 0.9 ppm of alcohol in his blood (about the same as after drinking 250 ml of vodka). He was fined UAH 17,000 and deprived of his driver’s license.
However, the latter penalty is not always possible, as scooter riders may not have a driver’s license and may not know the traffic rules. Bolt and Jet services, for example, say they do not require a driver’s license, the main requirement is that the driver be an adult.
Both companies noted that all trips are insured against damage to life or property of third parties. However, if a minor who has added years to his or her age during registration is involved in an accident, the consequences of the accident are generally not covered.
«It is now very important to develop clear and understandable traffic rules for e-scooters and liability for their violation at the legislative level. We don’t track all incidents with e-scooters, but we do track insurance claims — this year it’s less than 0.001% of all trips»,” says Anton Milka, Head of Bolt’s Sharing Services Development in Ukraine.
Last year, e-scooter drivers were recognized as full-fledged road users, but no special rules have been approved for them. The main requirements include driving on the right side of the road, wearing helmets and reflective elements, and prohibiting them from driving on pedestrian paths and sidewalks.