Singapore—The Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced on Monday, October 7, that starting from April of next year, all e-scooters will be required to undergo an inspection to ascertain compliance to criteria for them to be used in public paths.
These inspections must be carried out every two years.
This new announcement comes in the wake of, Lam Pin Min, the Senior Minister of State for Transport, saying two months ago that every e-scooter unit would be required to undergo a compulsory inspection of its UL2272 certification, width, weight, and device speed limits.
According to the LTA’s press release, “These are part of a series of measures to improve public safety.”
The release also said that the LTA is considering measures in addressing non-compliant Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs). “In addition, LTA is studying upstream measures, to tackle the issue of non-compliant PMDs more effectively. LTA is also reviewing the penalties for illegal modification of PMDs and other offences, and will not hesitate to come down hard on users who flout the rules flagrantly and endanger the lives of others.”
The good news is that the mandatory inspections for e-scooters registered before April 1, 2020 and were declared to be UL2272-certified will come at no further costs to owners.
People who own these devices will be given a notice by the LTA for bringing them in for inspection in one of the nine E-scooter Inspection Centres (EICs) across the country. These EICs are listed on the LTA website here.
Individuals who do not comply with the mandatory inspection may be fined up to S$1,000 and/or jailed up to three months, if convicted.
The press statement further adds “All non UL2272-certified e-scooters, including those found to be declared as UL2272-certified erroneously will be automatically deregistered on 1 July 2020, the deadline for mandatory UL2272 compliance for use on public paths. E-scooters that are UL2272-certified but do not comply with weight, width and speed requirements during inspection will have their registration cancelled by LTA.”
Starting from April 1 next year, all new e-scooters must pass the inspection before they can be registered for use on public paths. As for retailers or businesses that sell these items, they will only be able to display, sell or lease devices that have passed the inspection and bear the required mark of registration.
Riding an unregistered e-scooter on public paths is considered an offence, and first-time offenders may be fined the amount of S$2,000 and/or imprisoned for up to three months.
Riding a non-compliant e-scooter in public paths is also an offence, and first-time offenders may be fined S$5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to three months.
In Parliament also on October 7, Monday, Senior Minister of State for Transport Janil Puthucheary brought up the possibility of banning the use of personal mobility devices (PMDs) should the behaviour of riders remain unchanged, citing the safety of pedestrians as the main concern.
Dr Janil mentioned how the death of a 65-year-old woman after a PMD collided with her, as well as the growing number of accidents due to more and more people using PMDs.
He said, “Many wish for footpaths to be safe for pedestrians again. We share this wish too.
We are determined to improve footpath safety back to levels before PMDs were allowed onto footpaths.” / TISG
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