I spent five days in Barcelona over the past week, and one of the significant things I noticed there...is the use of E-Rollers (basically the kid's push-cart, with batteries and an electric motor 'pushing' it along). The curious thing is that you could see the bigger types which got up to 30 kph (18 mph), but the max sizes go up to 65 kph (roughly 40 mph).
Germany has been rather slow on 'authorizing' the E-Rollers. Chief reasons? The Germans debated the idea of a license or mandatory training requirement, and they debated over where it'd be authorized to be used (the blunt push is to make it only street-useable or on bike-trails, with NO sidewalk usage).
Part of this discussion involved limiting the E-Rollers to strictly bike trails or streets. As I noticed in Barcelona....E-Rollers were everywhere. People got themselves to a subway station...boarded the train with the E-Roller, and then rolled off to work at the destination station. The Spaniards had no real regulations over the E-Rollers.
The cost factor is what gets me.....you could go fairly cheap (with a battery pack/motor) and spend near 800 to 900 Euro ($1000 to $1100). You could buy the full-up 65 kph E-Roller for 1,700 Euro (meaning $2000).
A public hazard? Germans are quick to jump onto this topic, and I suspect in an average year.....at least 3,000 injuries will be reported, and at least ten folks will die via some E-Roller accident (either the user or the street pedestrian). Bottom line? Expect to see more in the general future.
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