The Australian city of Melbourne has banned e-scooter rentals because officials say they pose unacceptable safety risks.
The city council’s sudden about-face comes after it first welcomed the scooters in February 2022, when it said it would run a two-year trial.
However, hundreds of accidents have occurred since then, causing many complaints and public outrage.
Melbourne’s Lord Mayor says he is “fed up” with the bad behaviour of some scooter users.
“Too many people [are] walking on the sidewalk. People don’t park properly. They get flipped over, they’re scattered around the city like scrap paper, like trash, creating a tripping hazard,” Nicholas Reece told local radio station 3AW.
Melbourne is just the latest city in the world to ban the scooters – which can travel at speeds of up to 26km/h (16mph) – after a short period of operation. The French capital Paris banned them last September – with Mr Reece saying he wanted to copy “the Parisian approach”.
City councilors voted 6-4 Tuesday night local time to ban the scooters almost immediately.
Operators Lime and Neuron have been ordered to remove the scooters within 30 days.
The companies still have six months left on their contracts to operate the vehicles and have campaigned heavily in recent weeks, urging users to submit a petition to the council.
Both companies said they have made significant investments in recent months to improve safety and regulations around scooter use — with Neuron saying it is planning to install AI cameras on scooters to prevent misuse.
A company spokesperson condemned the city council’s blanket ban on Tuesday, saying it had been in discussions with city officials to come up with measures such as restricting scooter use to less congested areas of the city or establishing designated scooter zones.
“This goes beyond the reforms announced by the state government,” Neuron’s Jayden Bryant previously told Australian media.
“It’s strange when [a different] The proposal to introduce new electric scooter technology could change to a ban proposal.”
About 1,500 Lime and Neuron scooters have been distributed across the city since the trial began in February 2022.
Melbourne City Council previously reported that the scooters had cut the city’s carbon emissions by more than 400 tonnes and encouraged greater use of public transport.
But there is also growing evidence of the program’s flaws. One of the city’s main hospitals, the Royal Melbourne Hospital, released a report in December 2023 that found nearly 250 scooter riders presented to the emergency department with injuries in 2022. The majority of these were related to factors such as being drunk, speeding and not wearing a helmet.
A hospital spokesman said tram accidents have even caused death and brain damage, with injuries mainly occurring in young patients.
