Bucharest is a lovely city on first impression. It has wide boulevards, trees, lots of little parks and bigger parks and excellent cycle lanes.
I am used to seeing sharing schemes in China but had never seen shared scooters before I got to Bucharest. The Uber and Splash scooters are all over the city, sometimes parked responsibly and sometimes just chucked down on the pavement of or the grass.
Because of the many cycle paths, you see lots of people whizzing along on these rented scooters. I never thought these things were very safe – you only need to get a little knock and you’re off it.
The small wheels demand very smooth roads. One bump and you’re going to be over the handle bars. I wasn’t much tempted for the reason that I don’t want to end up in a Romanian hospital in the middle of a pandemic.
AS well as shared scooters, there are also shared bicycles and shared electric cars. It’s great to see the sharing economy strong, I am a great supporter, and was a heavy user of shared bicycles in China.
AS far as cars go, it’s an even better idea because renting a car for only the journey you need makes sense. If you own a car, unless you’re an Uber driver, then most of the time your car is stationary. Why own 100% of a car when you only use it for going to and from work and the supermarket.
An electric shared car is a partial answer to crowded streets and lack of parking.