E-Scooter & E-Bike Riders Required To Take Compulsory Online Theory Test From 30 June 2021 Onwa

In a bid to better regulate e-scooters and e-bikes in Singapore, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has announced on 30 April 2021 that mandatory online theory tests will be required for riders from end-June 2021 onwards.

Credit: AFP/Tobias Schwarz

People have called for tighter regulations after a spate of accidents involving e-scooters, and the Singapore Government previously announced new rules for e-mobility devices such as all bicycles needing to have at least one working handbrake, new import controls and more. The government also said they would be stepping up education efforts and that’s where this new compulsory online theory test comes in.

LTA has published two different handbooks, one for e-scooters and one for power-assisted bicycles (PAB), in anticipation of the multiple-choice online test starting in July. The e-scooter handbook is 64 pages long while the PAB handbook is 100 pages.

While it’s certainly comforting that the government is taking pedestrian safety seriously, there are some questions that will invariably come up with the announcement of the online theory test. The first question is how the test will be able to ensure that the person taking it is the same person actually riding the device. It seems highly likely that the test will require a login with SingPass, but riders could possibly provide their SingPass credentials to a third party to take the test for them, which would defeat the purpose of the test entirely.

We reached out to LTA with our questions, but LTA has stated that all the information they can provide at this time is in the Facebook post. More details about the test will be announced at a later date.

---

Written by Cheryl Tan