German insurance firms paid out an average of €3,850 ($4,313) for each incident
E-scooters have caused a total of 1,150 accidents leading to injuries in just one year, Germany’s Insurance Association revealed on Monday, in the first such national report on the electric two-wheelers.
The group presented its report two and a half years after e-scooters were officially allowed to hit the roads in Germany, and cited data from 2020. In that year, insurers had to pay out an average of €3,850 ($4,313) for each incident, the report said.
The figure was only €700 lower than the average sum paid to those injured in car accidents throughout Germany, which amounts to €4,550 ($5,169), the insurers noted.
“The high compensation shows how good and right the legislator’s decision was to introduce compulsory insurance for e-scooters,” the association’s managing director, Jorg Asmussen, said in a statement.
Since June 2019, Germans have been required to apply for a license issued by the Federal Motor Transport Authority to be able to drive an e-scooter. Each scooter must also have vehicle liability insurance. There are about 180,000 insured e-scooters in Germany, the report said.
Asmussen also called e-scooters a potentially “great danger to pedestrians” when people illegally drive them on sidewalks.
“E-scooters are not toys. They do not belong on the sidewalk, [and]may not be driven by children under the age of 14,” he added.
Germany is not the only nation that faced difficulties after introducing e-scooters onto the roads. Figures published by the British Department of Transport in October 2021 suggest that e-scooters were involved in a total of 484 accidents resulting in injuries in 2020. One person was even killed in such an incident, with 128 being seriously hurt.
