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REVEALED: How Oslo will crackdown on electric scooters 

The city council in Oslo will slash the number of electric scooters significantly and introduce rules on when and where users can use the devices. 

REVEALED: How Oslo will crackdown on electric scooters 
New rules could see a lot less scooters on the streets of Oslo. Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

On Tuesday, Oslo City Council was set to announce a number of new rules and regulations on electric scooters in the capital following a surge in accidents, VG has reported

Oslo has more electric scooters per inhabitant than any other city in the world, according to Richard Kongsteien, the communication director of the Agency for Urban Environment in Oslo municipality. 

The city has 200 scooters per 10,000 residents. Stockholm for comparison has 125, while Berlin, Paris and Rome were below 50. By the end of the summer, there will be roughly 30,000 electric scooters in Oslo available for rent.

As part of its clamp down, the city council is expected to cut the number of scooters available to rent by almost 70 percent by imposing a limit of 8,000. 

Rental companies will have to apply for their share of the scooters under the rule change proposed by The Agency for Urban Environment. 

In addition to this, rental scooters will be picked up and dropped off in designated areas, similar to how city bikes in Oslo are used. 

Curfews on when users can rent scooters were announced on Tuesday ahead of the shake-up. From August, rentals will be closed at night between 11pm to 5 am. 

READ MORE: Sharp increase in e-scooter accidents in Oslo leads to calls for stricter rules

Some rental services had already introduced curfews at weekends after Oslo University Hospital said that people involved in scooter accidents accounted for around 30 percent of all patients in the accident and emergency department at the hospital. 

The hospital claimed most patients came in during the evening at weekends, with around half having alcohol in their system. 

The city council will discuss the new measures on Tuesday with the potential changes coming into effect from August, according to Kongsteien. 

“We have the legal authority, which was passed in the Storting (Norwegian parliament) in June, and we have worked at speed with the regulations,” he told VG.

Rental companies and authorities in Oslo have been under pressure to regulate the use of scooters more thoroughly over the past two weeks after doctors from Oslo University Hospital hit out at how lax the rules are. 

Acting chief physician Angelina Sergeeva at Sunnaa’s Rehabilitation Hospital, where patients are transferred to following traumatic injuries, has said several factors make electric scooters more dangerous than, for example, a bike. 

“Major risk factors for getting a serious brain injury in electric accidents are that you do not wear a helmet and around half the injuries occur under the influence of alcohol when both judgment and balance are affected, and you drive at high speed,” Sergeeva told VG. 

The chief doctor also said that around one in three involved in electric scooter accidents suffers some form of head injury—these range from minor injuries up to the most severe traumatic injuries that can have life-changing effects. 

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RENTING

Rental prices in Norway’s biggest cities continue to rise

The cost of renting in Norway's four largest cities rose overall during the third quarter, with prices up six percent this year, figures from Real Estate Norway show. 

Rental prices in Norway's biggest cities continue to rise

A sharp increase in rent prices in Norway continued throughout the third quarter, figures from Real Estate Norway (Eiendom Norge) released on Tuesday show. 

“Real Estate Norway’s rental housing price statistics show a historically strong rise in rental housing prices in Norway in the third quarter,” Henning Lauridsen, CEO of Real Estate Norway, stated in a report on the latest figures. 

Growth was most robust in Stavanger and Oslo, according to Real Estate Norway. 

“The strong growth in rental prices we have seen in the wake of the pandemic continued in the third quarter, and it is particularly in the Stavanger region and in Oslo that the growth in rental prices is strong,” Lauridsen said. 

Stavanger and nearby Sandnes saw the largest price increases, with the cost of renting there increasing by 4.7 percent during the third quarter. During the same period, rents in Oslo increased by 2.5 percent, while a marginal 0.3 percent rise was recorded in Trondheim. 

While the cost of renting in Norway’s four largest cities overall increased by 2 percent, rental prices in Bergen declined. There, rents fell by 2.5 percent in the third quarter.

Lauridsen said that the increase in rental prices was likely to continue due to several factors. High inflation, interest rates, increased taxes on rental properties and a low supply of homes on the market all contributed to increasing rents. 

However, he did note that the supply of rental homes on the market had increased in Trondheim and Oslo since the summer. 

Lauridsen said that the least well-off financially were being hit hardest by rent rises. Previously, the Norwegian government has informed The Local that it will not introduce a temporary cap on rent increases. 

READ MORE: Norway’s government rules out a temporary rent cap

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