Personal transport equipment - bikes and scooters - will be the stars of the post-deconfinement summer. You might as well add an extra layer of security. The self-service electric scooter operator TIER will deploy by the end of the month 100 new models with a foldable helmet.
The German company has teamed up with the young Overade shoot to offer retractable protection and slipped into the thick housing installed just below the handlebars.
When renting the scooter in "free floating", the application offers to add the helmet (not compulsory) and its hygienic cap and then opens the case. The instructions for using it well are displayed in a tutorial.
The Overix Plixi helmet folds and unfolds in 30 seconds and offers the same protection as a classic bicycle helmet. Sold € 99 commercially, it is equipped with a device which verifies that the user puts it back in its place at the end of the race.
Otherwise, the counter continues to run and the user cannot stop his epic without rendering this protection.
TIER does not currently charge additional fees for this accessory. "The challenge is to attract users, in particular the reluctant, with a more secure service", underlines Alexander Souter, managing director of TIER in France. "Safety has always been a priority, we were already the first to bridle our scooters at 20 km / h before it became mandatory," he recalls.
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The Berlin start-up also has its sights set on the Paris city hall's call for tenders and the three places reserved for an operator to operate a regulated fleet of 5,000 scooters.
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“User safety” accounts for 30% of the final mark, so such a helmet could give a certain comparative advantage.
Other operators vying for the Paris market, such as Dott or Bird, are also interested in the inflatable helmet from the start-up Bumpair.
Pending the municipal decision, Parisian users will be able to adopt the foldable helmet on 100 scooters at the end of the month before ramping up to 5,000 gearboxes during the summer.
