The FIA Region 1 unveiled its 2021 road safety campaign on personal mobility devices last week, with e-scooters and e-bikes highlighted.
Aimed at raising awareness around the increasing diversity of vehicles on the road, the campaign will reinforce the regulations that are aimed to help avoid unsafe traffic situations or road accidents.
The campaign has been translated into 13 different languages and will be rolled out across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Supported by the FIA Road Safety Grant Programme, member clubs will participate in order to spread awareness.
“New Personal Mobility Devices complement and enrich the transport offer, while contributing to increased multimodality,” said Laurianne Krid, Director General FIA Region I.
“Greater variance in the types of vehicle and devices on our roads should not come with greater risks. We must all ensure that this greater variety does not decrease road safety. This will not be the case if we all engage in sharing the road safely.”
Policy Director (Ireland and UK) at Superpedestrian Jean Andrews told Zag Daily that there needed to be a continued push towards improving safety within micromobility amid the mode of transport’s rising popularity and rate of adoption.
“Light electric vehicles – including e-scooters and e-bikes – are soaring in popularity and are filling city streets across the globe,” she said.
“This is helping the drive to decarbonisation while improving connectivity between communities often left behind or divided by infrastructure designed for cars, not people.
“However, there are challenges to introducing new forms of transport. Many European city streets were designed for horses, carts and trams, and are now suffering from the effects of a century of invasion by motor vehicles. It’s extremely important that we do not lose progress towards climate change mitigation through fear – in this case, the fear for personal safety that many have when trying to share streets with motor vehicles.
“We support this move by the FIA to drive up awareness among motor vehicle drivers of the presence and vulnerability of e-bike and e-scooter users, as well as their right to share the road. This is like a “double jab” to immunise users of active travel against the danger of inattentive motor vehicle drivers.
“At Superpedestrian, we’ve already been working closely with road safety and drivers’ organisations, such as ACI in Italy and CNAE in Spain, to help foster an environment on our city streets where children can feel safe cycling and both young and more mature Superpedestrian customers feel safe scooting.”
