TAMPA, Fla. — They are the hottest new thing in Tampa and you have probably seen them zipping around: e-scooters. But new questions about how they’ll be enforced are coming up after a man riding one collided with a semi-truck Thursday.
Earlier this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing the scooters to ride in the roadways.
“It’s fun and makes it really easy to get around. The sidewalks are a little bumpy and hard to ride on, so the streets are easier,” e-scooter rider Amber Cross said.
Scooter riders are living it up in Tampa, embracing the new state law that allows them to ride in the streets. Riders were originally told they had to ride on the sidewalks.
“The law has been in transition. We here at TPD have no intention on becoming the scooter police,” Tampa Police Department spokesperson Steve Hegarty said. “I don’t anticipate this will result in any changes. The city council may look at what happened in Tallahassee, but we don’t know how that guy ended up in front of the sizeable truck.”
Under the new state law, you can now ride scooters in roadways and bike lanes. It says e-scooters are like bikes and allows scooters to operate anywhere in the state. It does leave room for cities to put in further regulation at the local level.
But don’t expect to see TPD out looking for scooter rulebreakers.
“At this point, we are not giving out citations,” Hegarty said.
Hegarty said their priority is educating the public on how and where to safely ride the e-scooters. He also says they are working on creating a special code to keep track of any issues related to the e-scooters.
E-scooters have been in Tampa for one month.
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