German police reportedly reprimanded hundreds of revelers driving e-scooters under the influence of alcohol during the Munich Oktoberfest.
Law enforcement caught 414 people who had been drinking and scooting. Officers took away the driver’s license of 254 of those alleged offenders, according to CNN.
Police also reportedly interceded in 32 cases to stop drunk driving. As CNN points out, e-scooters are classified as motorized vehicles in Germany, so driving an e-scooter while intoxicated violates drunk-driving laws.
Germany legalized e-scooters in June of this year. Electric scooter sharing companies quickly seized the opportunity. And by August, politicians were already raising concerns about how the blossoming industry could cause issues when Oktoberfest rolled around, calling for restrictions on use during the festivities.
At that point, Munich police had caught 418 people for e-scooter drunk driving, according to The Guardian.
“There are people who enjoy using these vehicles, but many regard them as toys rather than means of transport,” head of the Association of German Cities Helmut Dedy told the German newspaper consortium Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland at the time. “We need clear rules of play and they must be binding.”
It seems those legislators were right to fret considering officers interceded with hundreds of drunk riders over the course of the 16-day celebration of beer, food, and lederhosen.
In an effort to hinder users from leaving scooters behind, CNN reports that riders were restricted from checking out on e-scooter apps while they were on the premise of the festival location. Piles of e-scooters reportedly had to be cleared out around the city every night.
Perhaps next year Munich will heed the calls to enact restrictions so the city won’t have to deal with an invasion of e-scooters and a plague of inebriated Bavarian-costume-donning carousers at the same time.