The police are currently holding a week-long national enforcement operation targeting e-scooter riders in an effort to influence the attitudes and traffic habits of road users in order to reduce unnecessary near-miss situations and to avoid fatal traffic accidents.
Illegal e-scooting causes dangerous situations in traffic that could often be avoided by respecting the rules of the road. There have, for example, regrettably already been three fatal e-scooter accidents In the Helsinki Metropolitan Area within a short period of time this summer.
“We are monitoring the traffic behaviour of e-scooter riders more intensively for a week, intervening systematically at a low threshold in detected traffic offences and violations,” says Chief Superintendent Heikki Kallio at the National Police Board.
Change needed in the traffic habits of e-scooter riders
“E-scooting would not be a problem if road users respected the rules of the road and the obligations imposed by traffic control devices. The problem, however, is failure to respect the rules,” Kallio says.
The e-scooter enforcement week will address all kinds of illegal traffic behaviour by e-scooter riders, but especially activities that inconvenience and endanger other road users and endanger the e-scooter rider themself.
Kallio also appeals to parents to share information with young road users about where and how it is safe to ride in traffic.
Most penalties for riding on the pavement
The police are intervening in unlawful traffic behaviour primarily by means of fines and traffic penalty fees. As of Monday and Tuesday, the police had already issued more than 300 penalties, most of them for riding on the pavement and transporting passengers.
Enforcement results 26 – 28 August 2024
- riding on the pavement, 15 fines and 330 traffic penalty fees
- transporting a passenger, 11 fines and 75 traffic penalty fees
- jumping a red light, 34 fines
- riding the wrong way on a one-way cycle lane, 28 traffic penalty fees
- riding the wrong way on a road, 1 fine and 9 traffic penalty fees
- tuned e-scooters, 6 scooters
- failure to respect pedestrian crossing rules, 1 fine and traffic penalty fee
- riding while intoxicated, 1 fine
A traffic penalty fee is €40 and the amount of a fine depends on income.
