Helmets and number plates could become compulsory for electric scooter users

Belgium's federal mobility minister Jean-Luc Crucke (Les Engagés) has said that he is considering making helmets compulsory for electric scooter users in light of a significant increase in accidents.

Crucke is also considering equipping these types of scooters with registration plates to make it easier to identify users in the event of a traffic violation.

“Today, if you have an accident with a scooter, you’re anonymous,” said Crucke.

“When you drive your car, you’re immediately identified. Here, we’re dealing with vehicles that travel at high speeds. There is no reason why anonymity should take precedence over responsibility.”

Other measures under consideration include banning the import of scooters exceeding 25 km/h, approving "curvometers" capable of measuring the maximum speed of these devices, wearing a fluorescent jacket at night and applying stricter technical standards.

In 2024, Belgian traffic safety institute Vias recorded 1,825 accidents involving personal injury and an electric scooter. In 1,648 cases, the scooter ride was the victim, four of whom died.

Vias has been compiling statistics on accidents involving electric scooters since 2020 and has observed a steady increase. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, both the number of accidents involving personal injury and the number of victims and injured people increased by more than 13%.

This year is shaping up to be at least as bad. In the first quarter of 2025, 470 accidents involving personal injury and a scooter were recorded – an increase of 61.5% compared to the first quarter of 2024.

“This represents an average of five accidents per day involving an electric scooter,” said Vias researcher Shirley Delannoy, describing the trend as “alarming”.

“In the case of electric scooters, we advocate the use of helmets, ideally with chin protection, because the data shows us that in fact, in 60% of accidents, it is the head that suffers an injury.”

Crucke called it a “matter of common sense” to introduce new safety measures.

“Look at the number of accidents and, above all, the staggering increase in the number of accidents involving electric scooters,” Crucke said.

“When I see the severity of the head injuries suffered by some people, it's social security that pays for all of it.”

Vias has been tasked with studying the issue of helmet use and plate registration and examining what other countries do to address the issue. Crucke said he expects concrete progress on the issue “in the first few months of next year”.

The safety institute already concluded five years ago that helmets were "vitally important" for scooter riders, noting that, at the time, users admitted to A&E after an accident were generally not wearing them.

But while helmets could help, they are not a perfect fix, according to a study by the Gustave Eiffel University in Marseille, the Ecole de Technologie Supérieur de Montréal and DEKRA Accident Research, a German company specialising in road safety and accident analysis.

This study found that while wearing a helmet reduced the severity of injuries by cushioning the direct impact on the head, it did not necessarily prevent brain damage, especially when the accident caused the head to rotate.

One barrier already recognised by Vias is the inconvenience of carrying around a helmet when using a scooter as part of a multi-modal journey involving a bus or train – something that it hopes can be addressed by the invention of foldable helmets.

Mobility company Bolt views the proposed measures as overly strict, saying such general rules could significantly discourage the use of shared scooters, even though these are already more strictly regulated than private scooters.

“The majority of accidents involve private scooters,” said Bolt Belgium spokesman Guillaume Burland.

“Strict safety standards are already in place for shared scooters, and we’re actually seeing a decline in the number of incidents.”

Bolt fears that a general helmet requirement would be counterproductive.

“Users of shared scooters often use them spontaneously, for example for a short trip through the city,” said Burland.

“Unlike private owners, they rarely carry a helmet with them. A mandatory helmet would therefore deter many people and cause them to switch back to cars or less safe private scooters.”

The idea of introducing number plates for shared scooters was also met with resistance from Bolt, which said that this would lead to an expensive and cumbersome registration system, reducing the flexibility of the fleet and increasing operational costs, without significantly improving road safety.

Bolt said that shared scooters were already digitally traceable: “In the event of official requests, we pass on user data to the police or judicial authorities.”

Bolt is, however, in favour of a uniform speed limit of 20 km/h for both private and shared scooters.

“The most effective way to increase safety is to ensure that scooters do not reach dangerous speeds,” Burland added.