Torrevieja Local Police continues to tighten up its control of electric scooters, initiated in early September, at the start of the school year, to companies that offer them for rent, but fail to ensure that they are parked up correctly.
On some days in recent weeks municipal recovery vehicles have removed up to 30 units in one go. They find them scattered in many parts of the town centre where they can regularly be seen hindering the movement of the pedestrians, abandoned on pavements and in front of access ramps.
The removal of such scooters owned by rental companies has regularly seen the police remove them when they are grouped on public land without the mandatory license to be there. They are located next to islands of waste containers, pavements or areas reserved for car parking, in a trend that began after the pandemic, and which reached epidemic proportions over the past summer.
Initially, companies wishing to recover their scooters must pay a fine for each of them but even with this deterrent the monies they can earn enables the companies to continue to operate irregularly.
It is a lucrative business, especially in summer, in a municipality with a largely urbanised periphery, still with many deficiencies in its public transport system and without sufficient taxi supply. With operators quite content to opt for the payment of sanctions these same problems that are repeated across many local municipalities are likely to be with us for some time to come.
