Mr. Matthew Pencharz:

As one might expect, I essentially agree with my colleagues. When it comes to the mandating of helmets, there is a danger that it could become a blocker to mode shift and getting people out of cars and on to micromobility. In our user surveys, there is quite a lot of rider pushback on shared helmets. Maybe some of that is driven by Covid concerns and it may stick with us for the longer term. They are not terribly keen on using a shared helmet. However, we encourage helmet use, just like our colleagues, with the handing out of tens of thousands of helmets in the UK, for example. We have events during peak riding season in the summer, and when we launch schemes, at which we hand out helmets and educate people. We also award people with credit. If they take a selfie at the start of their ride while wearing a helmet, we give them credits to financially reward our riders to ride more safely.

When it comes to insurance, VOI has complete third party insurance in all our markets. In the UK, it is motor insurance because, legally speaking, a scooter is a motor vehicle in the UK, as it should be. That might not be the case in the longer term from what Mr. Padden has said and, similarly, in Ireland it is a third case. It is absolutely vital that we are insured. It is important to protect both the rider and third parties if there is an incident. It is also important, going back to the level playing field discussion we had earlier, that private e-scooters are insured when the legislation goes through. It is important in regard to what we are saying here, that is, to encourage the use of shared schemes.