Muscovites have hired the scooters more than 1.2 million times
since early April and are expected to continue flocking to
rental services until the autumn.
But this has worried city authorities as scooter accidents
increase, including one in St. Petersburg that left David
Zaleyev, a dancer from the Mariinsky Ballet, temporarily in a
coma.
To control the scooters, which are tracked by GPS, Moscow has
imposed a speed limit of 15 kph (9 mph) in the city centre. When
rented scooters enter the area, they are programmed to
automatically slow to that speed.
With interest in scooters growing, the city transport department
said it could make more areas subject to speed limits.
"Pedestrians can sustain serious injuries if they are hit by
scooters," Maxim Kadakov, editor of the car magazine Za Rulyom
(Behind the Wheel), told Reuters.
"Under current laws electric scooters have the same status as
pedestrians but they are 10 times faster."
Moscow's fleet of rental scooters is expected to double to
20,000 by the end of the year to meet demand, transport official
Magomed Kolgayev said.
(Reporting by Dmitry Turlyun; Writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber;
Editing by Giles Elgood)
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