In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of underage e-scooter users in Russia. According to major kicksharing companies, more than 50 thousand cases of e-scooter use by teenagers have been recorded in the past year. The accounts of these users are not being blocked, journalists note.
Regional authorities also confirm the problem of traffic violations by teenagers on scooters. St. Petersburg has a high level of accidents involving kicksharing. In most cases, they are driven by teenagers. In Yekaterinburg and other cities, the situation is exacerbated by the increasing number of scooters. Monitoring compliance with the rules is even more difficult.
In some cities, such as Blagoveshchensk, up to 70% of kicksharing users are teenagers. Over the year, the administration received more than 600 complaints, of which about 40% concerned violations committed by minors. The problem is also relevant in Yakutia, Saratov, and Primorsky Krai.
The leaders in the kicksharing market are MTS Urent, Yandex Go, and Whoosh. This year in Moscow, to rent e-scooters, you need to pass verification through Mos ID. This led to the blocking of 32 thousand accounts that did not pass the age verification. Operators claim that they are working to identify violations and block accounts of minors, but the effectiveness of these measures remains questionable.
According to experts, insufficient penalties for renting e-scooters by minors are associated with both economic and technical barriers. The possibility of introducing biometric verification is being considered, which will require significant investment but may help reduce the number of violations.
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