While electric scooters, "
hoverboards
", monowheels and other urban mobility devices have been proliferating in public spaces for several years now, the DGCCRF warns for the second year in a row about non-compliance involving risks in terms of security of many of them.
Worrisome results
A survey carried out by the DGCCRF in 2019, on motorized vehicles for urban mobility, made it possible to check 280 establishments, in order to verify the safety of their products and the obligations in terms of documentation. Sixteen samples were taken from potentially high-risk products: all were declared non-compliant, eight were dangerous, and four were subject to withdrawal or recall measures. The same goes for mechanical scooters, also the subject of a survey of 130 establishments. Of the eleven samples taken, two products were considered unsatisfactory and eight were declared dangerous. All have been brought into compliance by their manufacturers in order to avoid the recall. According to these checks, the dangerousness rate of urban mobility vehicles is therefore 50%.The samples were, however, taken from the devices that were in principle the most at risk: entry-level products, or reported on the occasion of complaints.
Risk of fire or electric shock
The identified dangers mainly relate to the risk of electric shock on the chargers of scooters, or to a lack of tightness of certain machines, which can cause short circuits at the origin of fires.
The control systems could also in some cases start to move on their own, without the user having a say.
Mechanical scooters for their part are not to be outdone since the risks of involuntary unlocking of the folding mechanism in full use are not negligible.
Good advice from the DGCCRF
What to listen to the advice of the DGCCRF, which to counter the risks recommends to verify the “
CE
”
marking
of the product at the time of its purchase. This ensures its compliance with European regulations. For its part, the DGCCRF intends to continue the controls in the years to come. It underlines that professionals in motorized urban mobility vehicles still have a poor understanding of the regulations, despite a slight improvement compared to previous years.