Member of Parliament Marino Keulen calls for campaigns around electric cyclingPosted at 19:45h in mobility, Flemish Parliament by Stella VansummerenStart this week, the Vias Institute announced its annual road safety barometer.

It contains a number of remarkable findings about the increasing number of road deaths and injury accidents with e-scooters and e-bikes. Marino Keulen, Flemish MEMBER of Parliament for Open Vld, urges Lydia Peeters, Flemish Minister of Mobility, to use this as an opportunity to develop awareness-raising campaigns about electric cycling: "This can be done by the government itself, but certainly also together with certain civil society organizations. I think of the OKRA's of this world. This way we can help the group of people over 55 with tips and tricks about using an electric bicycle and avoidable accidents do not have to happen." The traffic institute Vias published this week, as usual, a kind of X-ray of road safety in Flanders. Open VLD MP Marino Keulen is clear in his speech during the plenary session: "Road safety is always a double responsibility. On one side is the government that has to provide road safety infrastructure. On the other side are all road users who have a duty, legally and morally, to demonstrate appropriate and disciplined behaviour in traffic." When we study the figures, the number of road deaths and injury accidents withe-scooters and e-bikes is particularly striking. Both means of transport have become immeasurably popular and even a real symbol of freedom. "However, freedom is always a coin with two sides. On the one hand, people are now coming out who didn't before. They travel by bike, where they used to always take the car. At the same time, you also see that this e-bike requires a certain routine and agility for people over 65. They often lack that, sometimes resulting in serious injury accidents," says Marino Keulen. "Awareness-raising campaigns around electric cycling can be a solution here." Flemish Minister of Mobility Lydia Peeters indicated in her answer that she is working on it: "Regardinge-cycling we have to fully draw the card of awareness and education. Many people think that they can just test an electric bike and that they can do it. We specifically allocate resources to allow even more target groups to follow additional courses. In this way we make them aware of certain things so that they move around in a much safer way."