Overview
- On Monday the Bundestag approved a law creating verschuldensunabhängige Halterhaftung that makes commercial fleet operators legally responsible when a rider cannot be identified.
- The rule applies to self‑balancing microvehicles such as electric scooters and Segways and lets victims claim damage costs without proving a specific rider caused the harm.
- Local councils in places like Garching and Landsberg are rethinking whether to allow shared scooters and are examining special‑use permits, parking concepts, vehicle limits, and contractual exit rights for operators.
- Officials point to rising harms that drove the change, including accident reports that grew from roughly 4,000 in 2021 to about 8,000 in 2024, plus police reports of uninsured vehicles, two‑person rides, and software tampering that raises speeds to around 50 km/h.
- The law will likely force operators to add reliable user identification and stricter parking controls while cities may cap numbers, define service areas, or decline permits, which will ease victims’ claims but increase municipal enforcement work.