Serious fines to come in Budapest for improperly parked e-scooters

Hopefully, no more e-scooters will be thrown in the bushes or left in the middle of Budapest’s streets.

Today, Budapest has around 7,000 shared scooters and 2,000 bicycles for hire. Their inappropriate storage, however, has caused chaotic situations in the city. According to Budapest’s municipality, the usage of these sustainable vehicles should be regulated rather than banned. Thus, they have recently come up with a new initiative.

The idea is to set up micromobility points – initially in the inner districts –, and you will be able to pick up and drop off the vehicles only at these points. Three such collection areas have already been indicated in the Hungarian capital, reported Portfolio.

According to Budapest’s municipality, the establishment of micromobility points might serve as a solution for the storage of the two-wheel vehicles in Budapest.

Those who neglect this can face serious financial penalty. 

As Hungarian news portal Index reports, the municipality will charge EUR 13 (~HUF 5,000) for each scooter found in the bushes and “forgotten” in the middle of the road.

Last year, the first round of three micromobility points was designated in the inner-city areas. Presumably, these will be slowly extended to the transitional zones, and then to the suburban centre zones as well.

Thanks to digital data, the popular two-wheel vehicles (e-scooters and bicycles for hire) can be easily tracked.

This way, the municipality will be able to see online which vehicles are parked outside the designated micromobility points. Meanwhile, users will be able to find out where they can leave their rental equipment legally via the app.

In addition to the application, further tracking solutions are planned to be added to mark the available micromobility points in the future. Regarding their name, a competition was started to make it as memorable as possible for e-scooter users.

Another useful piece of information for users is that they can even have their driving licence revoked for driving an e-scooter while drunk. At the moment, there is no comprehensive legislation on electrically powered devices. However, the legislation on zero tolerance (since 2008) states that a person under the influence of alcohol is not allowed to drive. No matter whether we are talking about an electrically powered device or a non-machine driven vehicle (bicycle), the key is to be in a safe driving condition, reported Index.

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Source: index.hu, portfolio.hu