Voi’s digital traffic school has educated over 600,000 riders

May 24, 2022

We recently announced the launch of our international safety campaign – Let’s get it right – in order to raise awareness about behaviour that puts riders, pedestrians and other road users in danger, including: riding through red lights, intoxicated riding, pavement riding, twin riding and bad parking.

We’d now like to draw your attention to the importance of understanding and (most importantly) following the traffic rules that apply specifically to the vehicle you are using.

Traffic rules are not only there to keep you safe, they protect pedestrians and other road users too. And they’re important because they’re proven to save lives.

Research shows that younger generations, particularly people in their 20s living in urban areas, tend to have lower rates of driving licence possession than previous generations at the same age, indicating a potential lack of knowledge of traffic rules. Young people are also frequent users of shared micromobility services, making them an integral part in shaping the transformation of city transport to a shared mobility future.

Our safety campaign focuses, not only on increasing traffic rule knowledge amongst our riders, but also on reaching new riders and nudging them into testing our shared micromobility services. Because we want to help cities reach their sustainability targets by reducing car dependency, and that can only be done if more people utilise the shared electric mobility options available.

Safely onboarding new riders

Since day one, we’ve understood the importance of educating our riders about how to use e-scooters safely, in fact, we’ve made it our highest priority. In February 2020, the International Transport Forum stated in their report “Safe Micromobility” that incidents are more likely to take place during a person’s first few rides on an e-scooter.

A few months later, we launched Beginner’s mode, the in-app feature that enables riders to reduce the maximum speed of their e-scooter. Once a rider activates the Beginner’s mode setting in their user profile, the scooters travel at a reduced speed of 15km/h instead of the maximum speed set in their town or city. By enabling novice riders to practise riding at a reduced speed, we hope to build riders’ self-assurance on the scooter and help prevent accidents.

According to our rider surveys, many first time riders would feel more comfortable testing an e-scooter in a quiet area, or after having been introduced to the vehicle and its functions. That’s why we have committed to hosting more than 100 safety training events across Europe and the UK in 2022 to help facilitate safe testing for new riders.

Interested in coming to an event to take a test ride or talk about traffic rules? Follow us on Eventbrite to keep track of upcoming safety events near you.

The world’s first online traffic school for e-scooters

It’s the rider’s responsibility to know their country’s traffic rules when they use a shared micromobility service. However, with varying regulations in the 80+ European and UK towns and cities where we operate, we realise it can be tricky, especially when you’re travelling abroad in a city that you’re not familiar with. In Sweden, the same traffic rules apply for e-scooter riders as for those riding a bike while, in the UK, you must be over 18 years old and hold a valid provisional or full driving licence to ride a Voi.

To cut through the confusion, a good first step would be to visit the world’s first online traffic school for e-scooters – RideLikeVoila.com. It covers the traffic rules of all the markets where our services are currently available. Unlike most traffic schools, RideLikeVoila is not only completely free of charge but we also reward you for taking it with free rides. Since our launch in 2019, more than 600,000 riders have visited our traffic school. If you still feel unsure and want to learn more before you hit the road, just reach out to [email protected] – we’re here to help.

This article is part of a series about Voi’s safety campaign “Let’s get it right”. Read previous posts here:
Ride safe for a better city (9 May)
Ride sober for a safer city (17 May)


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