Just to hit on a point that others haven’t yet -
Obtaining that money by using the mechanisms of the state to remove control from individuals so that they have an oligopoly over the thing that produces the money IS their fault. And the fault of the government that enabled it, too. The companies would be complicit even if they weren’t lobbying, because they profit from the erosion of your freedoms.
Ahhh Sorry to hear that Spain will make it that complicated. The good thing though is that it pev’s will be legal despite the hard regulation .
I am surprised that most countries in EU have gone the way they have with bans and hard regulations. It makes our (Denmarks) rather hard regulation seem like a celebration of freedom and liberalism.
We have had our legalisation now for three years. I remember that I that I thought, that the battle against the no sayers would be easier when the rest of the EU followed with their legalisation. And now it looks like we have a way more liberal eskate regulation than most of the EU.
That surprises me as we normally are harder regulated traffic wise than our neighbours in the south. Same goes for Sweden and Norway.
Anyway…. We got an addition to our regulations this January. Helmets are now mandatory on all PEV’s.
The good thing about the regulation when we got it three years ago, is that the police leave us alone, as long as we are not crazy in the traffic and have our lights and reflexes on.
I may regret this but What is Lobbying? | Lobby Europe . All that mumbo Jumb essentally means bribbery by deep pockets and who’s most open to it. Not an excuse but it’s the world we live in… Ok done…Apologies ,the world needs left , centre, right and airborne to work together to defeat flat earthers laws… lets all try to do our part somehow…anyone got a spare 250,000 EUR for a start , there are some pockets to be lined?
I was riding an electric scooter down my street recently and obeying all of the road rules that a bicycle rider would observe. A car then turned a nearby corner, and as the car passed the driver began yelling aggressively out the window at me to “get off the road”. I know that if I had been riding a bicycle instead of a electric scooter that the driver likely would have passed me without any of the theatrics. It might sound weird, but I think that tribalism is something that affects peoples attitudes towards PEV. Our tribe is different to theirs and that annoys the other established tribes. I live in Australia and like others in this thread have mentioned it is still banned in most Australian states. I purchased my first PEV, an electric scooter around 3 years ago. Since then I have seen a significant increase in the number of PEV on the roads, in spite of it being illegal. In that time there has also been progress in moving towards legalisation of PEV here. I doubt any of this progress would have been made if we didn’t have an increasingly visible presence on the roads. No one invited us to be on the roads, we just rocked up in ever increasing numbers and now they are having to change the laws to accommodate us. At the end of the day, if you continue to ride and others continue to ride, it’s something that is very hard to police and stop you from doing.
My biggest fear with this kind of regulations is that they basically draw a very clear line between electric scooters and everything else (at least the way the text is as of right now). If only scooters become certified or certifiable, it will be incredibly easy to spot the guy riding a mountainboard or a EUC, fine the shit out of him and seize his vehicle.
Germany in a nutshell.
The proposed Irish regulations require speed and power limits, but thankfully I don’t think they require registration or testing that would lock out private ownership or put artificial barriers. There’s some safety stuff in there I’m all in favour of (mandatory helmets, no putting two people on one PEV), but the 250W and 25km/h limit seems designed to make them completely unsafe for road use
I’m reading some of the studies on safety, policy variations, other road users’ concerns, and it seems like a two tier approach is the most feasible. Europe seems to have somewhat arbitrarily latched on to 25km/h, and given the legitimate concerns from vulnerable pedestrians and especially the recklessness of young average consumers, it looks like that could be a reasonable limit for low powered, low expertise, low barrier of entry last mile commutes. I’d personally even welcome 20km/h for that tbh.
What we really need imo, is an upper category that can go up to 45km/h but that requires a license. Part of this is because
I’m sorry for riders in Spain, incredibly stupid laws. DIYing your own PEV is half the fun! Requirement for lights, reflectors, and top speed are reasonable imo. How do they expect EUCs to handle two brake systems? I guess that’s one way to totally outlaw them haha.
The rules here in Norway for powered small electric vehicles (separate rules for ebikes/pedal evs.) are currently:
Honestly I’m happy with these rules, although it seems like they’re slowly making them more restrictive. I would love for the top speed to be 25kmh, but oh well. 
I thought the top speed was 22? I was in Bergen in September and was under the impression the rule had just recently been reduced down to 22, and the speedometer on my rental thing did regularly let me get to 22
I’m also interested to see what you think of my logic above, that speed limits are a good idea but they add extra risk when you don’t have good infrastructure
Its defined as 20kmh, but its allowed to go up to 22 under testing iirc, due to it being under no load. Those rental scooters are really shitty. Big and heavy with a giant battery and anemic motor. Worn down tires and drum brakes that are good-enough from the factory, become frighteningly weak after being abused everyday for a couple of months. Not to mention the people riding them are often not the most capable.
As for your logic above, they seem reasonable enough, I guess. Here, the speed limit is just that the vehicle cant accelerate over 20kmh with its own power. There are still the same road limits that cars have to follow. You’re not allowed to go above 6 in places around people (sidewalks etc.).
Regulations like this seem to pretty much always be made with little thought of people not living in cities. In this case however, that’s basically the only places where people ride PEVs. And in my experience, the cities here have gotten a lot better for cyclists. Still a bit to go, of course, but 20kmh max is not really a problem in terms of safety to keep up with traffic. The places where other traffic is fast enough that an eskate rider can be dangerous, have their own physically separated bike lane. I can go from my home to my uni campus without ever having to share the road with cars (its only 3km, but still).
these are very much reasonable imho, maybe helmet should be mandatory, but other conditions are good af
so…how much do i need to immigrate to Norway? 
Why do PEV laws care so much about controlling the top speed? They don’t do that for cars or motorcycles
so much yes. More than reasonable.
also totally fine.
In germany scoots are technically prohibited to ride on the sidewalk. Either on the bike path or the road if there is no bike path clearly defined.
Are you crazy lmao, at least in the US if you can’t go over 30mph a cager will run you off the road for having the audacity to prevent them from going the absolute fastest they can in their car
Some PEVs associations are going to try and push to remove the most restrictive/stupid requirements (ie: power, parking brakes for 3+ wheels, mandatory handlebar height, independent brakes for EUCs).
If we get rid of things that would be technically impossible to achieve, the way to certification could be clearer and mark my words I will try and do it even if I have to setup a lab myself. I’ll make sure to bother you if it comes to that! 
This is basically what we have now (25km/h speed limit though) and I would kill to keep it this way. The worst part is that police seem to be more concerned about stopping people that ride responsibly in full gear but have bigger scooters/EUCs/eskates (potentially capable of going faster than 25km/h) than drunk kids in rental scooters. The new regulations are just going to make this worse because they’ll have a list to check.
And as @jack.luis said, it is incredibly stupid to enforce that speed limit, because every single other vehicle is allowed to go as fast as the signals on the road will let them. This generates dangerous situations with cars that in the city are limited to 30-50km/h and will do anything to overtake you. Because as everybody knows, the road is for them and you are just a nuissance.
Also, have I mentioned that every single city in Spain can have a different policy on whether or not PEVs can use the bike lanes or not? I’m just embarrased at this point.
Holy fucking shit, that actually exists…
wtf hahaha thats so funny, and yet so depressing. “that walking stick is really gonna help when it comes to stopping :^)”
