City leader wants to require helmets, impose speed limit for motorized scooters

ATLANTA — Atlanta City Council members continue to debate how to regulate the explosion in popularity of personal scooters in the city.

Channel 2's Dave Huddleston was at City Hall where he spoke with Dustin Hillis, the chair of the Atlanta Public Safety and Legal Administration about how the city plans to crack down on the use of the personal scooters.

Issues include whether or not people need to wear helmets, where they should be allowed to ride scooters and who's responsible if a rider gets injured.

"That is something very important that we need to speak through to the companies or that's a requirement we put on the riders," he said.

Hillis, who is also an emergency room nurse, says he wants to make wearing a helmet mandatory. He told Huddleston he's seen his fair share of head injuries and as chairman of the city's public safety committee, he wants everyone riding these scooters to have on helmets.

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Shareable mopeds come with a helmet, but the scooters don't. They do say on the shaft, "please wear helmet when riding."

"It's becoming, there you go, it's a bunch of people riding it. It's becoming popular," Hollis said.

We spotted several people riding the sharable scooters, but no one had on helmets.

Ryan Hage just started riding a scooter and plans to use a helmet in the future.

"If I want to continue riding this, I definitely think it's a good idea," he said.

Hillis and other city leaders are working safety regulations for the scooters, like a 15 mile per hour speed limit, mandatory helmets and riding scooters only in bike lanes or the street, when they are available.

"It's convenient, but sometimes you can't find them, certain times of the day everybody has them," Hage said.

Hillis said the safety rules and regulations are still being worked out by City Council and could take a few more weeks.

There are more than 200 sharable motorized scooters and mopeds in Atlanta.