The Irish government approved a Road Traffic Bill which allows for the usage of e-bikes and e-scooters on the roadways in Ireland. This means that new electric scooter legislation will soon be put into place.
According to Cormac Reynolds who works at Green Electric Scooters, he is quite excited and happy about this news and is waiting for further details on the new e-scooter legislation. Even though the details aren’t certain, it is possible to guess what they may be.
It is highly likely that the Irish legislation will be quite similar to the legislation laid out by other countries in Europe. Basically some of the requirements may be as follows:
– An e-bike and e-scooter speed limit of 25 kmph
– Busier areas will have a more variable limit
– Maximum motor size of 250w
– No cruise control
– No helmet requirements since this will hamper shared scheme usage
– Tax and insurance free
– Only persons who are 16+ years old may use them
These are not set in the legislation but are intelligent guesses on what it may be. Of course, we await to see the actual legislation and the details of it. This framework is important so that the scooters are used in a responsible manner in Ireland like they are being used in various European countries.
Legislation for e-scooters in the Republic are certainly quite late. This is may be due to the fact that Ireland has many issues with traffic congestion and transportation. As a result of these issues, there are many people who end up spending numerous hours in traffic and it is possible that e-scooters can help to address this problem and make people more mobile.
There are also many environmental benefits of using e-scooters. This is due to the fact that they don’t give out any emissions which means that they can drastically improve the quality of the air. Investing in electric care has also been encouraged. With that said, even though e-scooters are a more environmentally friendly mode of transport, they don’t necessarily improve congestion. Also, in order to produce e-scooters, a lot of raw materials are required which will result in high production costs.
Green electric scooters are an excellent option for people who want to easily move in urban areas. Most trips in these areas are quite short with 68% of these trips being under 5 miles and 23% of trips under 1 mile. So, it is certainly a better idea to use e-scooters for these types of trips as opposed to a car.
In the grand scheme, legislation will likely be very positive, however, the details still need to be determined. This may be done by the new year, so we will simply have to wait until the legislation for e-bikes and e-scooters is released.