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Madrid to ban e-scooters for reckless driving and disorderly parking

Madrid will prohibit escooters leased through mobile apps after the city's three certified operators stopped working to execute limitations on their clients' flow or manage their parking, Mayor Jose Luis MartinezAlmeida stated in a statement.

Martinez-Almeida said the licenses of Lime, Dott and Tier Movement would be cancelled from October which the city has no plans to grant new licenses to any other operators.

The market was discovered to be incapable of fulfilling the requirements set by the mayor's office to ensure the highest level of safety for citizens, he said in a declaration on Thursday.

The so-called scooter sharing system has raised opposition in cities around the globe due to reckless driving by users on streets and walkways and haphazard parking that typically leaves public areas jumbled.

Considering that May 2023, the Madrid city board had regulated the rental e-scooter market, just authorising Amsterdam-based Dott, Germany's Tier Movement and U.S.-based Lime, whose scooters are offered on Uber's app.

They were authorised to rent 2,000 scooters each.

The three operators were supposed to provide the mayor's office access to its information and were ordered to carry out technology requiring their clients to leave the scooters only in authorised locations and avoiding them from employing them in pedestrian-only streets or near historical parks.

They stopped working to meet those conditions, the declaration stated, adding that they have 20 days to appeal.

Dott, Lime and Tier did not instantly react to requests for remark.

Madrid follows in the steps of Paris, which last year banned e-scooter rentals following a public assessment.

(source: Reuters)