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Utah lawmakers may need to change some rules to allow e-scooters on downtown Salt Lake City streets

Transportation experts, state legislators and Salt Lake City leaders discussed Wednesday how to regulate the hundreds of e-scooters dropped on downtown streets at the end of June.

The state’s Transportation Interim Committee took a first chance to discuss the new transportation method, noting that some state laws complicate their use on roads with higher speed limits or more lanes of traffic. Creating new regulation will take time, acknowledged Gabriel Scheer, who’s the director of strategic development for the scooter company Lime. That’s because cities “haven’t necessarily been built” with electric scooters in mind, he said.

“I often compare it to cars 100 years ago,” he told the committee.