Anthony Piovesan
Electric scooters are causing major problems for drivers in Spain and dashcam footage has captured some frightening moments and near-misses.
Andalucia has been ranked inside the top five regions for the most traffic incidents in Spain involving electric scooters.
Electric scooters have caused nearly 400 incidents and 18 deaths in Spain since 2021.
A Mapfre Foundation analysis showed there had been 385 incidents – 83 of them serious – involving the personal mobility vehicles between January in 2021 and September this year.
The data comes as videos continue to emerge on social media showing riders dicing with death on some of Spain’s busiest thoroughfares.
Three people were captured riding scooters alongside 70km/h traffic inside Madrid’s M30 tunnel on the weekend.
Other riders have also been spotted moving along in the emergency lane on the A92 outside Seville and on the T11 in Tarragona.
Marbella Council will crack down on the scooters from this month, approving a host of new regulations to prevent further injuries and deaths.
The figures ranked Andalucia inside the top five regions of Spain with the highest incident rate, registering eight accidents.
Catalonia recorded the most incidents with 22, followed by the Balearic Islands (18) and then Aragon (11).
Regions with the highest number of deaths in incidents caused by electric scooters were Catalonia (6) and Madrid (3).
This year there had been 224 incidents in which five people died.
Last year 13 people lost their lives, 11 of them were men.
Five fell to the ground, five smashed into other vehicles and three pedestrians – two women and one man all in their late seventies – were run over.
From October electric scooter riders in the Marbella Council area will need to use helmets and get third-party insurance if they wish to continue using the personal mobility vehicles.
At present these types of vehicles are only subject to the rules set out by Spain’s Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT), which means they cannot be used on pavements or go faster than 25km/h.
READ MORE:
- Marbella council plans to regulate use of electric scooters from October
- EXCLUSIVE: How British tourists are bypassing disability rules to rent mobility scooters in Benidorm on Spain’s Costa Blanca
- New rules for e-scooters in Gibraltar as parking scheme gets green light
