Paris is over the scooter craze – on Sunday, French voters turned out and made it the first European capital to completely ban the transportation service.

By August 2023, some 25,000 rental electric scooters are to be removed, a move that city officials first considered over public safety concerns.

“From personal experience, my seven-week-old baby then, in 2019, who was being carried by his mother on an enclosed passageway, was hit in the middle of the road by a scooter that was on the wrong lane,” recalled Arnaud Keilbasa, a French salesman and vice president of Apacauvi Association, which helps victims of scooter accidents. 

“We almost lost our baby. And so after this, as a citizen, as a volunteer, we wanted to raise awareness with the municipalities and the politicians,” he told i24NEWS.

In Paris, over 400 people were injured riding scooters in 2022. There were also three deaths. Worldwide, cities are tightening scooter regulations, as people have called for a limit to the vehicle’s speed and areas where they can be parked.