A Cork councillor has proposed that teenagers be allowed to drive \u201cmicro cars\u201d from the age of sixteen.<\/p>\n
Quadricycles are battery powered cars which are defined by limitations in terms of weight, engine power and speed. They are common in France, Italy and Finland.<\/p>\n
Cllr Damien Boylan of Cork North West told Newstalk radio the move should be taken to bring Ireland \u201cin step with the rest of Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I suggesting that 14-year-olds should be handed the keys to the car and let off into the sunset? I\u2019m not suggesting that for a minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re suggesting that we can give a 16-year-old a scooter, some quadricycles are simply scooters with a surrounding to them. If you are allowed ride a scooter at sixteen I don\u2019t see any reason why you wouldn\u2019t be allowed to drive one of these at sixteen.”<\/p>\n
The typical maximum speed on a micro car is 45 km\/h, nearly double the speed limit placed on e-scooters. The average quadricycle is also much heavier than an e-scooter.<\/p>\n
Cllr Boylan says that the micro cars are mainly used in city centres.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re talking about here is urban transport at 30-to-45 km\/h through a city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey weigh around 500 kilos on average. They are minimal. It is two seats. It is urban driving. Let\u2019s be honest with ourselves. I live in Blarney in Cork and I couldn\u2019t see anybody driving one of these from Blarney in to Cork.<\/p>\n
“But if somebody lived in Bishopstown in Cork and they wanted to get in to Patrick St or if they wanted to get over to Blackrock through town, that I could see happening, Or if you lived on one side of Dublin and you were going through the centre of Dublin to the other side I can see these having a use.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Fine Gael councillor said it is not a case of just \u201chanding these to people”.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way it is done in France is that anyone who wants to be driving one of these must go through a set of driving instruction hours and must get signed off as competent. So it is not a case where like with the electric scooters anyone over the age of sixteen can just plonk themselves up on an electric scooter and take off.<\/p>\n
“Lots of people who would look at something like the Citro\u00ebn Ami or one of the other micro cars and say to themselves, \u2018Yeah, you know, I live in a city, this is about 10 grand, it\u2019s plastic so it won\u2019t rust. It\u2019s electric, so it\u2019s not going to need a lot of servicing and all I want is basic transport to get me to work and get me home, and it ticks that box perfectly’.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that unlike scooters micro cars have number plates and are registered to drive on the roads.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are treated as a car. There is tax paid, there is insurance paid and there is a registration plate up.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork councillor has proposed that teenagers be allowed to drive \u201cmicro cars\u201d from the age of sixteen.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[781,8221,79,18,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-8197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-transport","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}