Two mud-covered e-scooters stand like a monument on a cold, sunny day on the banks of the Spree on Berlin’s Museum Island. It’s probably at least their third life after they first made some people a lot of fun, then caused a lot of trouble for others and then – like so many e-scooters before them – said goodbye for a dive in the Spree.
Back on the surface, they now show above all that in four years with electric scooters we have neither understood their purpose nor how to use them properly – or wanted to understand them. Even if e-scooters theoretically have a better eco-balance than cars, they are of little use if they mainly replace emission-free pedestrian and bicycle traffic and are otherwise purely a leisure activity – they were not intended for that. So, let’s do ourselves and the environment a favor and get rid of them!
Paris has demonstrated with a vote that this is possible. With almost 90 percent, the admittedly few participants clearly voted for the abolition of e-scooters in the city. Whether they will actually disappear completely from Paris or whether an upper limit will be set has yet to be clarified. Nevertheless, they have started the ongoing discussion again in Germany: Are these things really necessary?
When the scooters were introduced in 2019, they were supposed to contribute to the traffic turnaround and climate-friendly mobility. The euphoria was great, but the scooters did not fulfill their purpose. Hardly anyone drives an e-scooter instead of a car, certainly not longer distances and in bad weather or with a large shopping bag.
Ok, many see the scooters as an alternative to buses and trains or want to save themselves the completely climate-neutral walk with the speedsters. But most of them just have the racing fun in mind. This is even shown by surveys by the ADAC and Forsa, commissioned by the Road Safety Council. For more than 60 percent of those surveyed, e-scooters are used to pass the time and are mostly used because of the opportunity. Just 13 percent use it to drive to work. More than half also drive a maximum of two kilometers with the e-scooter, i.e. a distance that would otherwise probably have been covered on foot or by bike.
So should people really be forced to walk again and ban scooters? Yes, for three reasons: Firstly, a study by the Federal Environment Agency shows that e-scooters primarily have disadvantages for the environment with well-developed public transport networks and short distances.
Secondly, they favor the fact that laziness wins, especially in inner cities, and that the much healthier walking or cycling become less attractive. In outskirts, where e-scooters could be useful due to poorer bus and train connections, they are usually not available.
Thirdly, riding an e-scooter is proven to be more dangerous than riding a bike. In 2022, the TÜV association recorded 8,260 accidents with e-scooters in which people were injured or even killed, almost twice as many as in the previous year . The reasons for this are that people disregard traffic rules, drive in pairs or – usually at a later hour – are drunk on the road.
Perhaps the latter is also an explanation for why hundreds of scooters had to be laboriously fished out of German waters. At the beginning of February, members of the German Anglerfishing Association in Berlin fished 17 pieces from the Spree along with lots of other scrap, just this week there was a salvage operation with divers in the Mittelland Canal in Hanover. It costs them up to 200 euros per scooter, said a spokesman for the scooter rental company.
It is also important for environmental reasons that the scooters should not remain in the water forever. Because the problems with e-scooters are not only caused by those who drive – sometimes more and sometimes less sensibly. It is also due to the e-scooters themselves, which in the end are one thing above all: hazardous waste. The batteries contain toxic metals that can leak into water after a long period of time. The raw materials used in them, such as lithium or cobalt, are also rare and could be used more sensibly elsewhere, e.g. in batteries for electric cars or cell phone batteries.
And then there are still unanswered questions such as: Where do the e-scooter rental companies get their electricity from and how clean is it? And is the lifespan of the scooters really used up? Will the batteries be fully recharged and replaced at some point, or will the scooters simply end up in the scrap heap?
Especially for medium-length routes, we should think back to public transport and the tried and tested bicycle. Riding it would also be a lot more fun if you didn’t have to fear an emergency stop at any moment due to an overturned e-scooter.
This text first appeared here on Capital.de.
