Malaga’s mayor was involved in an e-scooter accident

Luckily, Francisco de la Torre, who was hit by a rider, did not suffer injuries

Yesterday morning, Francisco de la Torre, who is the current mayor of Malaga, suffered an incident when he was hit by a speeding electric scooter while he was walking to his office in the city hall. Fortunately, the mayor was left unscathed but as media reports were quick to point out, the irony is that the accident happened on the very same day when Spanish legislators made it compulsory for mobility vehicles, such as e-scooters, to be sold with roadworthy certificates.

It‘s not clear who bore the fault for the unfortunate event as according to witness reports it happened as the mayor was crossing the recently installed cycling path exactly where he was supposed to cross it – on the marked spot.

At least, it wasn‘t a hit-and-run since the rider got off the scooter and went to help the mayor and inquire about his well-being. Mr De la Torre responded that he was fine.

Issues of pedestrian safety

Electric scooters with their noiseless but fast motion have invaded pedestrian urban spaces, especially in the post-Covid era and different cities have responded in different ways to this trend.

Spain decided to take action at a federal level with its Directorate-General for Traffic (DGT) pushing for the new roadworthiness certification, which is now in force for vehicles sold from here onwards.

The legislation concerns the so-called Personal Mobility Vehicles (PMVs), of which scooters are the best-known examples. The law states that they must have a speedometer, two independent brakes and must be capped at a maximum of 25 km/h. In order to ensure that the latter standard is applied they must be sold with an anti-tampering system.

In addition, e-scooters must have indicators for battery levels and several reflectors: white at the front, and red at the rear.