Scooter riders guilty of an accident are fined from 340 UAH to 17 thousand UAH and deprived of their driver’s license
At least 130 cases of accidents involving electric scooters have been considered in courts over the past 5 years, according to the court register search engine Babusya. 34% of them were considered in 2023. Scooter drivers can be fined from UAH 340 to UAH 17,000 for violations and lose their driver’s license for a year.
111 administrative and 22 criminal cases related to accidents with electric scooters were found in the court register as of July 2024.
The largest number of accidents involving scooters was recorded last year: 36 administrative and 10 criminal cases. However, the number of such proceedings is only increasing from year to year: more criminal cases have already been opened this year than in the entire year of 2021. Since the beginning of this year, the courts have already heard at least 16 administrative and 3 criminal cases involving scooters.
The most common types of accidents where scooter drivers are to blame are pedestrian collisions or property damage. In such cases, drivers mostly get off with a fine of UAH 340 to 850.
At the same time, the number of cases when scooter drivers are caught driving while intoxicated is increasing. For example, last year, a driver of a rented scooter hit a woman on the sidewalk. During the test, he was found to have 0.9 ppm of alcohol, which is about the same as after drinking 250 ml of vodka. The offender was fined UAH 17 thousand and deprived of his driver’s license for a year.
However, violators cannot always be fully prosecuted: drivers may not have a driver’s license and simply do not know the traffic rules. For example, a courier on an electric scooter rushing to deliver an order with 0.33 ppm in his bloodstream argued in court that he was sober and that the scooter was not a vehicle. However, these arguments did not help him avoid a fine of UAH 17 thousand. The driver’s license could not be confiscated, as required by law, because the offender never had one.
Our editorial team asked how the scooter rental business reacts to such statistics. Bolt and Jet companies said that the law does not require scooter riders to have a driver’s license, but according to the rules of their services, the driver must be an adult. It is worth noting that the services do not require documentary proof of age: users must enter their date of birth during registration.
Both companies noted that all trips are insured against damage to life or property of third parties. At the same time, if a minor is involved in an accident and pretends to be older when registering (as in the case of a teenager who rammed a car in Kyiv), the consequences of the accident are either not covered by insurance at all (Jet) or, depending on the circumstances, the service reserves the right to make a final decision (Bolt).
“At themoment, it is very important to develop clear and understandable traffic rules for electric scooters and liability for their violation at the legislative level. We don’t track all incidents with electric scooters, but we do monitor insurance claims – this year it is less than 0.001% of all trips,” comments Anton Milka, Head of Sharing Services Development at Bolt in Ukraine.
Context
As a reminder, in 2023, scooter drivers were legally recognized as full-fledged road users – but special rules for them have not yet been approved. Drivers of electric scooters, monowheels, etc. must move as far to the right of the roadway as possible, use reflective elements and helmets. At the same time, such vehicles are prohibited from driving on sidewalks and pedestrian paths.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/scooters-dtp-2024
