Electric scooters have been in the legal gray area in Ireland for a long time as current road traffic laws don’t allow them to run on the roads.
Despite the limitation, people still are free to buy and enjoy a ride on a personal e-scooter.
Because of the law, rental companies still aren’t allowed to enter the Ireland market and run their rental business.
Ireland is clearly catching up with the technological evolution trend. With a new bill, like the rest of Europe Ireland is joining the party of electric scooter legalization.
A member of parliament named Alan Farrell first introduced the bill on Monday, 9th of November to make it legal to run electric scooter on Irish roads.
So far, e-scooters have existed on legal gray area where the road traffic rule abandoned e-scooter to roam around on the road. But that didn’t stop people to buy personal electric scooters and run them on the streets.
But the lack of proper law, ride-sharing companies were prevented or not able to enter the Irish market.
Now, where did Alan Farrell’s bill pointing towards? His bill clearly stated that private or sharing electric scooters will be allowed to use both roads and cycleways. Speed shouldn’t be over 25km/h and a rider must be over 16 to ride it.
Unlike the UK’s e-scooter trial, the bill doesn’t need to have a provisional driver’s license.
On a press brief, Mr. Alan Farrell told that “Our law in Ireland currently explicitly excludes a bicycle from licensing and registration and what I’m trying to achieve for simplicity is that a personal light electric vehicle or an electric scooter is treated as a bicycle,”
In the summer of 2020, as the UK government rushed to the e-scooter trials on the country, it left Ireland as the only major European country not to legalise this electric vehicle. At the same time, the Irish government also invested a large bill to deploy the new cycle infrastructure during the pandemic but no progress was seen on e-scooters.
Farrell also said that “I expect my bill to become successful as the program for government included a commitment to legislating on micro-mobility vehicles and the Road Safety Authority has recommended their legalization.”
The bill is now has gone to the higher authority of the Department of Transport to be examined. It’ll require amendments and will go through various stages on the parliament.
Farrell also said that “I’m pretty confident that the bill is sufficiently robust legally to pass muster within the department.”
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