Bolt's shared e-scooters in Belgium will be deactivated on New Year's Eve as a precautionary measure, the mobility platform announced on Thursday.
A VIAS Institute for Traffic Safety study showed that one in three traffic accidents is caused by alcohol. To prevent such accidents from happening and to protect road users from potentially dangerous traffic situations, Bolt has decided to temporarily pause all shared scooter activities on Friday night.
"New Year's Eve for many people means a nice night out with lots of fun. But sometimes this fun leads to unsafe behaviour, such as irresponsible riding on shared scooters and in the worst case, this leads to accidents," Oualid Benhammadi, Bolt Belgium's Country Manager Micromobility stated in a press release.
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Bolt's e-scooters are normally available for use in Brussels, Ypres and Namur. However, between Friday 18:00 and Saturday 07:00, they will all be made "invisible" in the app and all vehicles will be switched off in the streets during this period.
"Our goal is to provide the safest mobility solution in the cities where we operate. For the safety of our users and other road users, we have decided to pause our activities during New Year's Eve. In addition, we count on the common sense of our users not to drive under the influence."
Another e-scooter platform, Dott, has said it will not deactivate its vehicles. "By doing so, we can still provide a service to those that are not drinking and rely on Dott to travel around safely and responsibly," spokesperson Rob Haycocks told The Brussels Times.
In Brussels, public transport operator STIB announced that it would be expanding its services during the night from 31 December to 1 January and that travel on its metros, buses and trams will be free to ensure that people can travel within the city in the safest way possible.
