A man on an electric scooter who drove at a speed of 112 kilometers per hour instead of the permitted 25 kilometers per hour in the interior of Brussels was arrested by the police as a repeat offender, the French-language Belgian daily newspaper La Libre Belgique reported.
It was not the first time that the scooter rider – who this time took part in a bicycle parade – significantly exceeded the speed limit. According to police information, he zigzagged between the cars on at least two occasions, exceeding the speed of 70 and 80 kilometers, which is also proven by the videos filmed by the perpetrator and uploaded to the Internet.
The authorities also announced that more than a thousand drivers of electric scooters have already been found to be illegal this year. According to the evidence of the inspections, even a minor technical modification enables these vehicles to travel even faster than 100 kilometers per hour.
Belgium – where electric scooters are already part of public transport in most cities – introduced nationally valid regulations for the use of these means of transport as of July 1st. According to this, scooters can travel at a maximum speed of 25 kilometers per hour and can only be used by people over the age of 16. The scooters can only be used by one person at a time, it is forbidden to carry passengers.
The introduction of the rules was mainly justified by the increase in the number of accidents. In 2019, 59 scooter accidents were registered, but this number rose to 1,022 in 2021, and several of them were fatal. According to a recent survey evaluating road safety, the number of accidents involving scooters involving personal injuries has more than tripled nationwide this year, from 96 to 296.
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Picture: illustration.
