Paris Makes Helmets And High-Visibility Vests Mandatory For E-Scooter Riders As Deaths Surge Sharply

PARIS — Riders of privately owned electric scooters in Paris are now required to wear an approved helmet and high-visibility gear on public roads, under new safety rules that took effect Friday following a sharp rise in fatal and serious accidents involving the devices.

The rules, announced by police, apply not only to e-scooters but to a broader category of devices French authorities classify as motorized personal mobility devices, including electric unicycles, Segways and hoverboards. Riders caught without an approved helmet face a fine of €135, or roughly $155, while those who fail to wear a high-visibility vest or other approved reflective gear face a smaller penalty of €35, or about $40.

The measures took effect Friday across Paris and its inner suburbs, including the departments of Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, extending a patchwork of similar rules already in place in parts of the country. Helmets and high-visibility gear had previously been mandatory in several other French regions, including Seine-et-Marne, Alpes-Maritimes and Vaucluse, but had only been strongly recommended, rather than legally required, in the capital before this week.

Police said the new requirements were introduced in response to a marked increase in serious and fatal accidents involving the devices in recent years. According to figures cited by police from France's national road safety watchdog, 79 people were killed in e-scooter-related accidents nationwide last year, up sharply from 45 the year before. In Paris specifically, roughly 1,100 people were injured in accidents involving the devices last year, a 33% increase compared with the previous year. Authorities said a significant proportion of the accidents resulted in serious or fatal head injuries, a pattern officials pointed to directly in justifying the new helmet requirement.

The tightened rules add to an already substantial set of restrictions Paris has placed on electric scooter use in recent years. Riders must be at least 14 years old to operate the devices, carrying a passenger is prohibited, and speeds are capped at 25 kilometers per hour, or about 15.5 miles per hour. Riders are also required to carry insurance and are barred from riding on sidewalks except in designated areas.

Notably, the new rules do not appear to extend to standard pedal-assist electric bicycles, which are regulated separately under French bicycle law rather than the framework governing motorized personal mobility devices. That distinction means the mandatory helmet and high-visibility requirements apply specifically to scooters, hoverboards, unicycles and similar devices, rather than to the broader category of e-bikes increasingly used for commuting across the city.

Friday's rule change follows one of the most significant shifts in Paris's approach to micromobility in recent years: the city's 2023 ban on shared, rental e-scooters. That decision came after a citywide public consultation in which roughly 89% to 90% of participating voters backed removing rental scooters from city streets, though turnout for the vote was notably low, drawing criticism from some officials and scooter operators at the time over how representative the result truly was. Despite the ban on shared devices, privately owned e-scooters have remained legal and widely used across the city, a distinction that has kept the devices a visible and, at times, contentious presence on Parisian streets even after rental operators were pushed out.

Paris's move to restrict shared e-scooters in 2023 was itself driven by long-running complaints about their unregulated deployment, including scooters left obstructing sidewalks and concerns about reckless riding. Before the citywide ban, Paris had already taken incremental steps to rein in the shared scooter market, cutting the number of authorized rental operators from a larger field down to three companies in 2020 and capping their speeds at 20 kilometers per hour under a three-year operating contract that ultimately expired without renewal.

Paris is not alone among major European capitals in tightening restrictions on e-scooters in recent years. Madrid banned shared rental scooters in 2024, and Brussels has announced plans to follow suit. The broader trend reflects growing concern among European city governments over the safety risks posed by micromobility devices, even as demand for lightweight, low-emission transportation options has continued to grow in dense urban centers.

The new Paris rules have drawn a mixed reaction from commentators covering the change, with some noting that while the helmet requirement addresses a clear safety gap, the accompanying high-visibility vest mandate has been interpreted by some as an implicit acknowledgment that collisions with cars, rather than scooters themselves, remain a central driver of serious injuries. Critics of that framing have argued that requiring riders to make themselves more visible to drivers shifts responsibility onto scooter users rather than addressing driver behavior directly, though authorities have not publicly characterized the new rules in those terms.

For now, compliance with the new helmet and high-visibility requirements falls squarely on riders, with police empowered to issue fines on the spot for violations spotted on public roads. Enforcement details, including how consistently the rules will be applied across the newly covered suburbs, have not been fully outlined by authorities.

The rule change comes amid a broader, longer-running debate in France and across Europe over how to balance the environmental and mobility benefits of electric scooters against the safety risks associated with their growing popularity. With e-scooter-related deaths and injuries continuing to climb in France despite years of incremental restrictions, Friday's mandatory helmet and high-visibility rules represent one of the most direct interventions yet by Paris authorities aimed at reducing the toll of accidents involving the devices, even as questions remain about how effectively the new penalties will be enforced across the city's dense network of streets.