New draft law regulates e-scooter use in Romania

A draft law regulating the use of electric scooters on Romania’s public roads has been submitted to the Chamber of Deputies earlier this week. The document is aimed at amending the Traffic Code and was drafted by an MP from the main opposition party PNL.

The bill defines the electric scooter as a “two or three-wheeled vehicle whose maximum design speed does not exceed 40 km/h and which is equipped with an electric motor whose maximum continuous nominal power doesn't exceed 2 kW,” local Digi24 reported.

The document also stipulates that e-scooters can be used on bike lanes. Also, according to this draft law, only persons over the age of 14 may use bicycles or electric scooters on public roads, and those under the age of 18 must wear a helmet.

The same bill says that the bikes, electric scooters and mopeds must be equipped with night lights and reflective-fluorescent devices that must be used when night riding.

The PNL MP Sorin Dan Moldovan explained that such a draft law was more than necessary given that electric scooters are increasingly present in traffic. He said that, due to the legislative void, it is not clear at the moment where the people are allowed to ride an e-scooter or what obligations they have if the police stops them in traffic.

The e-scooter rental trend has been on the rise in Bucharest, as three companies launched such services in the capital city so far, namely Lime, Flow and Wolf-e. However, one of the users’ main problems is that they don’t really know where they can legally ride e-scooters.

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