Scooters in Barcelona: These are the most common complaints and how to avoid them

The Barcelona Urban Guard has underway the sixth campaign of the year to control personal mobility vehicles. Until the month of October, in the Catalan capital, two people who were driving a electric scooter, and until September, the number of VMPs involved in traffic accidents is 540, 54% more than in the same period of 2020 and 10% more than in all of 2019.

Until September, in addition, filed 14,200 complaints to private users who circulated in breach of municipal regulations. And another 3,712 to VMP linked to economic activities. The sum of both results in that 66 users of personal mobility vehicles are fined daily. These are the most common complaints:

• Circulation risk: 7,861

• Driving where it does not correspond: 5,344

• Security features: 939

• Parking: 23

• Speeding: 33

The first two categories take the cake and refer to all scooters that either they were driving on the sidewalk or were traveling recklessly, including, for example, skipping traffic lights or wearing headphones. Regarding the sanctions for business-related VMPs, the most common fine (2,771 sanctions) has to do with non-compliance with the minimum requirements (leave the permitted areas in Ciutat Vella).

Own regulations

The Barcelona’s town hall pioneered in 2017 with the first municipal regulation in the entire state linked to VMPs. The regulation was included in the Ordinance on the Circulation of Pedestrians and Vehicles, one of the most reinvented texts of the entire council legal palette. As a reminder, there are four strokes of the text that will allow you to avoid being part of the sanctions statistics. The regulations are more extensive, but if these requirements are met, it will be rare for us to end up with a message from La Urbana.

It can be circulated in the following ways:

• Single deck streets

• Sidewalk bike lanes (10 km / h limit)

• Road bike lanes (25 km / h limit)

• Roadway of streets of zone 30 (without exceeding 25 km / h)

• Parks (10 km / h limit)

You cannot circulate on the following roads:

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• Streets of the basic network of the city

• Sidewalks or pedestrian areas

• Single platform streets expressly vetoed by VMPs

• Crossings, urban tunnels, interurban roads, highways or highways that cross the city

What has not yet been approved, because it must be discussed politically and socially, is the mandatory use of helmet. The council sees it with good eyes only for the VMP, in no case, for now, for the bicycles. The issue of Obligatory insurance, which does not seem to have the same consensus as the helmet.