Paris mandates helmets and reflective gear for e-scooter riders

Paris police ordered e-scooter riders to wear helmets and reflective gear, extending the rule to hoverboards as the city tightened enforcement after a rise in crashes and serious injuries. Riders who skip a helmet now face a €135 fine, while those without a high-visibility vest or other reflective gear face a €35 penalty in Paris and its inner suburbs.

The crackdown follows a steep injury tally. About 1,100 e-scooter users in Paris were seriously injured in 2025, a 33% increase from 2024, and 79 people were killed in e-scooter accidents across France that year. Those figures have pushed Paris further away from its earlier pitch that electric scooters were a clean, flexible way to move across short urban trips.

The city has been moving toward tighter controls for years. France introduced new e-scooter rules in 2019 after hundreds of incidents and several deaths. In June 2021, Paris threatened to ban self-service electric scooters after a woman was killed. By March 2023, France had raised the minimum age for e-scooter use from 12 to 14 and increased the fine for carrying a second rider from €35 to €135.

Paris voters then took the city in a harder direction. In an April 2023 referendum, 89% of participating voters backed a ban on shared e-scooters, although turnout was low, and the shared fleet stopped operating in Paris from 1 September 2023. The new helmet and visibility rules now apply to private riders as well, turning what had long been safety advice from Paris transport information and French government service pages into a legal requirement.

The Paris move also fits a wider European tightening around micromobility. In May 2026, Portugal floated a proposal that would make helmets and reflective gear mandatory for e-scooter and e-bike users, with fines from €30 to €150. For riders, the message from Paris is clear: e-scooters remain allowed, but the city is no longer treating them as low-risk casual transport.