Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Effectiveness of tightened rules on e-scooters raises questions
A man rides an e-scooter in Seoul, Tuesday, two days before revised regulations with strengthened safety measures took effect. Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Revised regulations on electric scooters took effect on Thursday, accompanying toughened safety measures such as requirements of driver's licenses and helmet use. However, doubts are rising over the effectiveness of the toughened regulations due to poor ID-certification procedures and the difficulty of policing users.
Under the revised rules, only people with class 2 driver's licenses for motorcycles or permits for other types of vehicles are allowed to ride e-scooters. The class 2 license is available for people aged 16 or over who fulfill the appropriate requirements, while higher level driver's licenses are available for people aged 18 or over. Previous rules allowed people aged 13 or older to use e-scooters without no license requirement in place. Violators are now subject to a 100,000 won fine.
Those riding the scooters without a helmet are also subject to a fine of 20,000 won.
In line with the revision, operators of the shared e-scooters are installing systems in their apps checking the users' driver's license. Users of Gcooter, Kick going, Xing Xing Mobility and Beam can register their licenses after ID verification sent via text messages. Users of Lime can scan their licenses.
However, there are technical loopholes in the license-checking process, because it can be done using other people's phone numbers. For example, a high school student without a driver's license can use the app after being certified using their parents' license.
A driver's license verification system operated by the Korea Road Traffic Authority is unavailable for e-scooters; the system is only used for car rental services.
One industry source admitted that such problems could arise, and that it is up to individual users to abide by the safety rules.
“We can't say such problems will never occur, but we hope our users possess the social awareness not to do so,” the industry source told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
Questions are also being raised about whether the police will properly enforce the regulations.
Random checks are the only way to check whether a user possesses a driver's license, so effective policing could be difficult.
“The police may immediately know when someone doesn't wear a helmet, because they can see it. But how do you know if the user has a driver's license by just seeing them?” said Lee Seul-ki, a hairdresser who frequently uses e-scooters in Seoul.
“I think it should be prevented by using technology, rather than wasting administrative power.”
Regarding helmet use, since the average e-scooter trip lasts about five minutes, it seems very unlikely for users to carry a helmet just for the short time of use.
Some operators have attached or plan to attach shared helmets to their e-scooters, but they don't expect this will work. Last December, two operators in the city of Daegu attached helmets to 300 scooters under a pilot program, but more than two thirds of them were lost and one sixth of those remaining were damaged.