Lisbon, Sept. 28, 2026 (Lusa) - The mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, gave an assurance on Monday that he would take measures to tackle risky behaviour by people using electric scooters, without giving any details, highlighting the «utter chaos» caused by parking and riding against the flow of traffic.
«We cannot ignore what is happening in the city – the risky behaviour of scooter riders travelling in the wrong direction. […] As mayor of Lisbon, I will have to take action, and I will do so,» said Carlos Moedas at the launch in Lisbon of the United Nations Global Road Safety Campaign, in partnership with outdoor publicity company, JCDecaux Portugal, at the city hall.
The event was attended by the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Road Safety, Jean Todt, and the co-chair of the JCDecaux Executive Board, Jean-Charles Decaux; the audience also included, amongst other organisations linked to road safety and mobility, the president of the Automobile Club of Portugal (ACP), Carlos Barbosa.
Last week, the ACP announced that it had collected around 20,000 signatures from registered voters in Lisbon to hold a municipal referendum on the continuation of the shared electric scooter scheme in the city.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the ceremony, Carlos Moedas recalled that when he took over as mayor of Lisbon, he managed to halve the number of shared scooters in the city by negotiating with the operators.
«I am analysing what is happening, but I still see a great deal of chaos, whether in terms of parking or the scooters in the city centre, and so we will have to take measures, but not here today; this is neither the place nor the time,» he pointed out when asked about specific measures.
The mayor stressed that «if scooter operators do not ensure that a scooter cannot be ridden against the flow of traffic», the city council (CML) will «have to take those measures».
Regarding the reduction in road accidents in Lisbon, Moedas advocated «gradual policies that gradually change people's behaviour», citing as an example the changes recently introduced in the downtown Chiado district, with the widening of pavements and the closure of some streets to motor traffic.
«Enforcement is also needed; here in Lisbon, we have always focused on enforcement and on addressing a long-standing problem that concerns us all, and the United Nations brings the capacity to examine this issue from a global perspective,» he emphasised.
According to Moedas, Lisbon had more than 30 road traffic fatalities per year in 2020, a figure that has now fallen by around half to 16.
The United Nations Special Envoy, Jean Todt, highlighted that road traffic accidents claim the lives of 1.2 million people a year worldwide, leading Jean-Charles Decaux to describe the phenomenon as a «silent pandemic» that particularly affects the younger population, aged between 5 and 29.
In Portugal, between 2015 and 2025, more than 5,900 people lost their lives in road accidents, equivalent to around 50 deaths per month, according to data from the National Road Safety Authority (ANSR), the national health authority (DGS) and Statistics Portugal (INE).
The United Nations and JC Decaux campaign «calls for the adoption of safe behaviour on the road and reinforces the global commitment to reducing road accidents»; it has already been rolled out in more than 65 countries through the French multinational's network of advertising spaces in public areas, airports and shopping centres, and is set to be present in all 78 countries where it operates by the end of the year.
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