In September I build my first electric Longboard. Over the last months it becomes my favorite vehicle for traveling short distances between 500m and 5 km (in my home town in Germany). I’m looking forward to ride my esk8 next spring/summer more often, but there is no generell regulation for those kind of vehicles in the EU and riding a esk8 in Germany, and in most other contries too, is not legal at this moment. At this days we are addicted to ride unobtrusive through the cities or the tolerance and curiosity of local police officers.
I have seen that other people are try to fit in the current regulation with there esk8s, but in my opinion it’s better to fix the regulations by adjusting the depending law.
At this moment I’m on the Chaos Communication Congress (34C3) at the Leipzig fairground and many people (feeling like every 10th person) are riding esk8s, electric scooter and self balanced boards. This feels like a worthwhile future to me. (if you are also interrested in this topic, you can contact my on twitter @64b__ or email: esk8 ( -at- )64b.de )
So my Idea is to find parties, institutes, companies and other players which are also interested in this kind of topic (e.g. save the envenvironment, fix the city traffic problem and so on). I will start to do some lobbying for legalize small electric vehicle (e.g. electric skate/longboards, electric scooter, …) in the future.
By the way, I’m not naive, so i know it is a long way and chances are basically not very good. But I think it can help to live in a more sustainably world, when more people are traveling short distances with this kind of electric vehicle and I give it a try.
To be very honest, I think the only country esk8 is “say banned” are only in The Netherlands and In Germany. I’ve seen people with all sort of electric vehicle in paris, spain, portugal, malta, belgium and swiss. This is quite sad as I live in NL atm, but well what can I say about that.
That might be correct at the moment but the Germany is “role model” for many other EU countries, sadly. So the bans could be just around the corner if nothing changes there.
I’m only know the law situation in Germany and here the regulation is a little bit outdated. The only adjustment in the last years was that for e-bikes.
I think it is not active “banned”. There is simply no rules for this kind of a vehicle.
E-skating has been legalize in Denmark from 1.1.18. The exact rules has not been determined and published yet, but there is a detailed proposals that is pretty thoroughly worked out. The final adjustments are supposed to be made doing January in cooperation with relevant parties such as interest groups and the Police. We are a group that have asked to be heard and to be a reasonableI voice in the legislative work process. We have not been fully invited yet, but it actually seems that we will be invited.
At the moment I spend a lot of time reading documents and contacting relevant parties. When I have more time I will let you know the exact rules and how the proces has been. I am lobbying the hell out of it right now!
I think Denmark is the first country in EU to legalize e-skating. Hopefully this will be a an example to follow!
We need to push the eco side how green they are driving cars and vans for 3 km when u can take your e board
I’m doing the same here in Ireland I’m going to try and set up a few meeting’s
Can u put up the laws in the Denmark and if any one know s of other laws that are in place put them up