“There’s no chance I’ll drive one of these again”

Electric scooter accidents in Israel are no longer just Tel Aviv’s problem. About 70% of all electric scooter accident victims in 2023 occurred outside the city where the trend began. While Tel Aviv still leads the way with 362 victims last year, other cities such as Holon, Ramat Gan, Ashdod and Jerusalem are not far behind in the number of electric scooter accidents.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Or Yarok organization, 1,157 people were injured in electric scooter accidents in 2023, compared to 1,103 in 2022, an increase of about 5%. On average, about three people are injured in scooter accidents every day.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, three people died in electric scooter accidents from January to April this year, compared to a total of three deaths last year and four in 2022. The data also shows a sharp 20% increase in serious injuries among the In electric scooter accidents last year, one in ten victims were children and teenagers under the age of 16, even though this is the age at which you can legally ride an electric scooter. This represents a staggering 32% increase in the number of victims under the age of 16 compared to 2022.

34-year-old Dror Asia from Tel Aviv vows never to ride an electric scooter again. “In 2022, I rode a shared electric scooter from Masaryk Square to Carmel Market,” Asia said, emphasizing that he used the scooter legally, at a speed of about 10-15 km/h, wearing a helmet and riding on the Street.

“A bus that was traveling next to me swerved into the right lane, hit me, knocked me over and then ran over my left leg. The driver didn’t even notice, but people were yelling at him and he stopped and got out. It was me.” I was in the hospital for 11 days with 10 broken legs and took about a year to recover. The accident happened just when my daughter was just three months old. I would rather wait another 10 minutes for the bus, walk or even buy a car, but there is no chance of me getting a scooter or an electric bike again drive. In my eyes it is a crime that it is still legal,” he said.

However, not all scooter riders are law-abiding like Dror, and many admit to riding without helmets or under the influence of substances.

Anna, for example, drove a scooter under the influence of alcohol. “About six months ago I went out with friends and had a few drinks. Around 4:00 a.m. I took a scooter and rode home through the Rail Park in Tel Aviv, stopping to pick up some groceries along the way. I didn’t feel drunk and it was a short ride on a bike path that I’ve done almost every day on scooters like this for the last five years, so I wasn’t worried. My next memory is waking up in Ichilov Hospital, like in a movie, with a blanket and three paramedics on a stretcher above me. Afterwards, I saw through security cameras in one of the bars in the area that I was lying unconscious on the path for about five minutes and no one came by because of the hour.”

“I don’t know why I fell. I either lost my balance due to the grocery bag hanging on the handlebars, or I slipped due to the moisture caused by the sprinkler system on the trail. If I hadn’t been drunk and without a helmet.” “I would have sued the municipality, but that’s not the case,” she added, admitting that she wasn’t wearing a helmet on the community scooter she was riding. “Even if there was a helmet, I wouldn’t have worn it,” she added.

Anna broke her cheekbone, which has not fully healed to this day, slipped her shoulder and suffered several abrasions, some of which left scars. “I just see people riding scooters without helmets and I want to jump on them and save them from themselves. The traumatic experience is not the physical aspect, it is simply lying down in the middle of the night. It could have ended very badly.” “I have friends who were afraid of my accident and no longer drive, but there are also those who obviously have to experience it first hand,” she said.

To address the increase in accidents and, in particular, the lack of adequate enforcement, the Knesset Economic Committee last year passed a regulation requiring all drivers of scooters and electric bicycles to display a nameplate on their vehicles, similar to those on cars and motorcycles August 1, 2024.

The electric scooter regulation was first proposed by Minister Israel Katz six years ago. However, it seems that most Israelis are in no hurry to register their vehicles on the Ministry of Transport website. According to the website’s data, only 4,000 have registered so far, representing a drop in the ocean of Israel’s hundreds of thousands of electric scooters. The Ministry of Transport will soon launch a campaign to increase the number of registrations.

According to regulations published by the ministry, the fine for driving an unregistered electric scooter or electric bicycle with a nameplate is only 100 shekels in the first year until August 2025. After one year, the penalty increases significantly to 750 shekels.

Meanwhile, the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality began enforcing the labeling ordinance in early 2020 by requiring companies that used shared scooters to display a sign on each scooter. However, enforcement in the city is partial, at least until the new regulations take effect this summer.

Despite the grim statistics and numerous accidents, the regulations and increased fines do not appear to be particularly effective in curbing illegal and dangerous scooter riding.

“The number of victims in electric scooter accidents is constantly increasing,” said Yaniv Jacob, CEO of Or Yarok. “The use of electric vehicles has become increasingly popular in recent years, but traffic police have not joined in and many cities have not paved safe cycle paths for cyclists at all. In addition, many people ride without helmets and ignore traffic rules,” making pedestrians feel unsafe. This chaos needs to be changed through enforcement and a safer driving area.