Connect with us
Finance Digest is a leading online platform for finance and business news, providing insights on banking, finance, technology, investing,trading, insurance, fintech, and more. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website.

NEWS

PARIS (Reuters) – An overwhelming majority of Parisians voted to ban electric scooters from the streets of the French capital on Sunday, in a non-binding referendum that city authorities have said they would follow.

The ban won between 85.77% and 91.77% of the votes in the 20 Paris districts that published results, according to the City of Paris website on what was billed as a rare “public consultation” and prompted long queues at ballot boxes around the city.

“I preferred to vote against, because in Paris it’s a mess,” railway worker Ibrahim Beutchoutak, 47, told Reuters TV. “The way it’s organised, the danger that it creates in Paris, the visual pollution, it’s not good.”

Cities worldwide are tightening regulations on e-scooters, limiting the number of operators as well as speed and where they can park.

In 2021, 24 people died in scooter-related accidents in France, including one in Paris. Last year, Paris registered 459 accidents with e-scooters and similar vehicles, including three fatal ones.

“In my work, we see a lot of road accidents caused by scooters, so we really see the negative effects,” general physician Audrey Cordier, 38, told Reuters after voting against the scooters.

Electric scooters accessed through smartphone apps have operated in Paris since 2018, but following complaints about their anarchic deployment, Paris in 2020 cut the number of operators to three.

It gave them a three-year contract, required that scooters’ speed be capped at 20 km/hour and imposed designated scooter parking areas. The current contracts will run until September.

Operators had offered further regulations, including checking users were over 18, fixing licence plates so police could identify traffic offenders and limiting to one passenger.

On Sunday, operators such as Tier and Lime sent free voucher codes to users to encourage them to vote against the ban.

Some voters said they would have rather had tighter regulations than an outright ban.

“I voted for (the scooters) because I’m against the rather binary choice we’re given in this referendum. I don’t want scooters to do whatever they wants on pavements, but banning them is not the priority,” Pierre Waeckerle, 35, said.

 

(Reporting by Michel Rose and Clotaire Achi; Editing by Josie Kao)

 

Continue Reading

Why pay for news and opinions when you can get them for free?

       Subscribe for free now!


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Recent Posts