Unlike many surrounding cities, Mesa is interested in increasing the number of scooters, and it hopes that by dropping the business licensing fees from $5,000 to $400 will help. City officials believe that scooters are just another answer to the public demand for cost-effective public transportation, and that more scooters will help connect residents to bus routes and light rail stops.
Tempe and Phoenix haven’t dropped their licensing fees, and they currently stand at $7,888 and $10,000 respectively.
Mesa still has plenty of rules the scooter companies must follow, including:
Scooters aren’t allowed to be staged on city-owned property, parks, bus shelters, or anywhere impeding pedestrian and wheelchair paths
If a scooter is impounded for a violation, the company will pay a $50 penalty fee
Operators are required to provide 100 helmets, which the city will distribute through schools and transportation safety programs
Operators have to provide monthly reports on the number of scooters used, total miles traveled, duration of trips, and crash statistics
Operators will also have to track the number of complaints it receives
However, Mesa has no safety rules regarding ages of users and where riders can operate the scooter. Alternatively, Tempe has several rules, including that riders must be 16 years of age, must wear helmets if under age 18, must operate in bike lanes and can only be on sidewalks if there isn’t a bike lane, and motors must be turned off when riding on sidewalks.
News reports show that as the number of scooters increase in many cities, so do the injuries associated with them. Scooter accidents in Phoenix reached triple digits early in 2019, and the Tempe Fire Department responded to more than 100 accidents between May 2018 and January 2019. A Tempe hospital treats an average of one to two injured scooter riders per day. Arizona State University police reported 33 calls of injured scooter riders during the last six months of 2018.
Many injuries are minor and range from scrapes and cuts on arms and legs to more serious injuries like broken bones and head trauma. Scooter riders can also cause car accidents by not properly following road rules and traffic signs. On the flip side, car drivers can injure and kill scooter riders for the same reason, and because they aren’t properly sharing the road and yielding to riders.