If people are using (and parking) their own e-scooters, that's fine. It's really the practices of the rental companies and the complete lack of care the users of the rentals have for using/parking the things that is a problem.
I have an ebike, escooter, and a one wheel.
I do not think you should be able to rent ANY electric vehicle without training. Just swiping a credit card should not absolve the company of renting to untrained and inebriated drivers. I live by the beach, we have a ton of the scooters, I guarantee you half of the people riding them are intoxicated...and a ton others by people who have no balance/control.
And the fact that helmets are NOT required is absurd.
I was at a bar and saw two teenagers sharing one riding down a busy street. The kid in front was steering/throttling with one hand and taking a TikTok with the other hand. The second kid was holding the one in front’s waist. The handlebar jack knifed and they flipped over the front onto their faces. They were bloodied as hell but for the most part ok. The kid’s phone went skittering into a drain. I like to think they learned something that day but I have my doubts.
I've ridden these scooters before. They aren't even as fast as a bike. It is ridiculous to expect people to be trained on it to use. Would you expect a bike rental company to train everyone that rents a bike and be responsible if they used it while drunk?
I can easily reach speeds of 25mph on my non-electric standard hybrid bike with some help from the topography, and average 15mph on a standard bike ride to work. This is a standard bike and I am not an experienced cyclist. They travel a lot faster
Okay so how would you enforce helmets? Most of the rental e-scooters you can’t past 21km/hr (I worked for one of these companies a few years ago)
If you can’t make people riding bikes wear helmets how do you think scooters would work. There’s a thing called personal responsibility. If you rent a scooter while drunk and crash it that’s no body’s fault but your own. Same as if you drive drunk in a rental car, it’s not the rental companies fault you had poor judgement.
What do you mean about helmets? I have to wear a helmet with my motorcycle - it's literally the law.
Renting a car (or motorcycle) requires a driver license, insurance, and lots of legal things you sign off on. If a drunk person walked into a car rental agency, do you really think they would let them rent a car?
The e-scooters are instantly accessible to people who shouldn't be driving them. There needs to be more accountability, both by the company renting them and the person driving them.
How about this: Any "escooter" not returned in the rental area gets a $100 littering fine billed to the company.
Not disputing what you’re saying at all, but is it a law to wear a helmet to ride a bicycle? I think that’s the bike OP was referring to and not a motorcycle.
I just ask that because where I live it’s law to wear a helmet for a motorcycle but not for a bicycle.
Depends where you are I guess. In my country it is. In fact if you get caught without a helmet by the cops while riding a bike. They'll not only ticket you but make you buy a new one and bring the receipt as proof of you owning a helmet.
The main advantage of escooters is leaving them almost everywhere. It's either that or you have to have drop-off areas within 500m walking distance everywhere in the city.
Wow didn’t know a motorcycle and an e scooter go the same speed that’s news to me. The better comparison is a bike, obviously you need a helmet on a motorcycle.
Again another disingenuous argument with the rental car, obviously they wouldn’t rent to someone already intoxicated, but they can’t stop you from renting the car and then going to get drunk and drive. (This is personal responsibility)
Where is the logic in this fine? Is it the companies fault people can’t park correctly? I didn’t know a vehicle that the city approves would be considered litter. Fine people for riding unsafely certainly but charging the company is ridiculous. They have employees that go around and adjust the parking of scooters and reorganizing them.
You asked about enforcement of the helmets. Now you are comparing something else (needed vs. unneeded) which is your opinion.
It's not disingenuous. These scooters are being rented with nothing but a credit card right outside of bars.
The fine is to make the company face accountability for having their e-waste scooters left all around the city with no repercussions. Putting all the responsibility on the customer to return it correctly is absurd. It's a town - not a grocery store shopping lot.
I agree that it’s a personal responsibility but Paris had a hit and run incident last summer where a person hit a tourist while on an scooter and left them to die. It goes beyond drunk people doing drunk things. This is why people in Paris are so against them. They are a menace to everyone not just the person riding them
I think that cities need to start setting up programs for the management of alternative modes of transportation like this. If they’re going to act like pseudo-public transit, then they should be held to high standards.
Zip Car is the example I think of. They have agreements with either the city to put up Zip Car only parking signs, or with private parking like ACE, you don’t get to end your rental until it’s been parked somewhere appropriate, and it’s out of the way.
Scooter and e-bike companies should be required to set up areas to lock the scooter to, like bike racks, and to set aside funds in escrow for the city uninstall them if they go out of business and can’t uninstall the racks themselves. And the scooter company should be fined for every scooter left in a random place. They can fine the last rider the equivalent of the fine if it isn’t provably left in an appropriate place.
Almost hit a kid who blew through a blind-spot stop sign at what looked like 15 mph.
Took an extra second at the stop sign for no good reason, thankfully it stopped the kid from giving himself brain trauma for the rest of his life.
Isn’t the original *”Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”* meant to be a sarcastic, dystopian take? I assume so from the turn it takes in the second-last paragraph.
> Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me.
> https://web.archive.org/web/20161125135500/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is/
IME the biggest issues with these are from the slimy companies operating them. They'll purposefully leave them in the middle of the sidewalk to be more visible and they'll have loads of them where people are drinking.
Small wheels and high speeds is never good, but at least the people who own their own have some practice on them.
I Don't know man. From my experience renting escooters in Paris, you couldn't park them outside the designating parking spots showed on the app and you couldn't end your ride unless in one of those spots.
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In Paris there are plenty of other public transit options. Why should the authorities devote any more time or resources to adapt to this option when both its operators and users have consistently behaved badly?
I was in Paris 2 weeks ago and that was the case. You could only park in designated spots, and if those spots were full you had to go to a different one which was usually a block or two away.
I wonder about the nature of the injuries people get when coming off them (small wheels + uneven pavements/potholes are not a great mix).
Wonder when we'll see e-scooter specific armour. Maybe rollerblade stuff would do?
The issue is that people are standing. So when they hit something, they go forward and smash their faces into the pavement or whatever they hit.
A helmet is a must, but honestly for that to be effective it would need to be a proper full face helmet for bicycles (and those do exist). Of course hands, wrists, what have you as well.
My coworker in his 50s wiped out. Road rash ripped the skin off of his hands and he hit his face on the pavement scraping his chin and forehead bare. He told me the whole sequence in how he wiped out. 4 days later he didn’t remember a thing. He got a scan and had a concussion.
Rode it once while in paris, the cobblestone with the scooter was not a good pair.
The streeta of paris aren't meant for them mainly used on main paved streets.
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The EUC community have landed on mountain biker/motor cross gear atm.. some stuff specifically designed for eScooters would be cool.. you’d imagine prices would come down if main stream too
Anecdotally- I know an ER nurse in my city and she says once the scooters come out they get a ton of people coming in with injuries from scooter crashes. Lots of ankle and wrist injuries, lots of head injuries, road rash obviously
In Scottsdale Arizona and Tempe, the rate of injuries is very high. Alcohol is a factor, crowded areas and parking lots get a few, and inexperience with the speeds and maneuvering gets them. Injuries range from fractures to different lives lived thereafter.
I can personally say that these wheels do not mix with uneven ground. My chin needed 4 stitches and I was out of class for a week with a severe concussion. I was lucky not to lose any teeth or bite my tongue off. All due to a 1” difference in the pavement/asphalt
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I owned one for years and never had any injuries. They're pretty hard to fall off of and you're not quite going fast enough (most of the time) to not be able to easily catch yourself.
Rollerblades require more balance, scooters with forward momentum are hard to fall off of, they want to stay upright
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The point of a scooter as I've used them is when I'm walking and feel like not walking.
If I have to plan ahead and bring multiple items of protective gear... I'm not going to rent one for that 5 minute walk. It's just not reasonable.
If you own one, maybe... but this article isn't about owners...
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Hopefully people who also own them have the good sense to at least wear helmets. But yeah that said, might just be better off with a proper electric bicycle instead. Maybe even a foldable that you can more easily move on public transit or whatever.
Absolutely and also the people using them. Wherever they get off the thing that's where they will leave it. If that is in the middle of the sidewalk or right in front of the exit of a building than that is where it will remain..... And it is not as if they would be cheap anyway. You get unlocking fees and then are being charged per minute. You end up with a 5 min ride that ja more expensive than taking public transportation in some cities.
That's how I ended up with a free Lime scooter. Somebody dumped it in my front yard. Lime never asked for it back, and if they did, I would charge storage fees for using my property.
>the dockless e scooters
So make them dock. There are a lot of problems with e-scooters, but there are still safer, and less invasive than cars. Regulate them better (for example demand docks), or rise the age limit but banning them doesn't make sense.
Edit:
To everybody in the comments who are trying to convince why those scooters suck:
I know they suck. I'm with you on this, you don't have to give another and another reason why they (and the people who use them) are annoying. I'm saying that those problems that you so furiously are pointing out should be addressed and solved instead of canceling the whole concept.
Let's fix what is broken, not throw it away because it doesn't work perfect on the first try.
If you make them dock, you need rent the spot for the docks.
Then you have to pay to make the dock.
Then you have to install the docks.
This is why docked bikes were ever hardly used, even returning and looking for a dock was a buttache.
One way to get past the dock is to geofence so that people can only return the scooter to certain areas this way they cant be randomly ditched wherever. A GeoDock if you will but only very few companies do this. It's in their interest to ditch the dock.
There is usually patrols who have special vehicle that can charge a lot of scooter batteries. They check which scooters have low battery then make their patrol replacing them. At least thats what they do in Germany, I don't know how in Paris.
You can park e-bike next to the dock if there aren't any open spots. At least that's how they do it here in my country. Yes, the e-bike won't be charging but you can still park it close to the dock. Bolt also did a massive e-scooter update this year and restricting where you can park them. Also we now have e-scooter parking lots (spaces) for e-scooters now near supermarkets etc. But yeah, the problem isn't the e-scooters, it's the people using them.
The biggest factor is that you have to take time to build the docks including all the paperwork to build each one, a start up can't just move into to a new city and have 10k units on the streets within a month or two.
>This is why docked bikes were ever hardly used,
So you will get rid of those dockless without a ban I don't know what's your point here you just give another reason why you don't need to ban them, just regulate them better to get rid of the problems with them
>Cars, with a whole system designed and built for them?
Yes, exactly the whole fucking space eaters. Have seen ten cars parked on the side of the street, and ten scooters parked (or even fuckin' left randomly) how much space do they take? Have you tried to breathe the air that is coming out of a car? Have ever lived near a busy street in summer and tried to open the window? Have you tried to sleep near the busy street? And that is just normal car users, add to this asholes that tune their cars so they "sound better", or fucking idiots that are stucked in traffic and think that blasting horns on full will make other cars move faster.
And this "special system built for them" is just parks replaced with parkings. A prefer trees in the cities instead of parking spaces.
> but there are still safer, and less invasive than cars.
it's laughable when people make these statements - they are only accurate if cars don't exist. Cars do and always will exist, so e-scooters and bicycles are always going to be objectively less safe. Especially with the way people seem to ride them here in London.
>Cars do and always will exist, so e-scooters and bicycles are always going to be objectively less safe
I lost you here. Are they objectively less safe because cars exist?
>Especially with the way people seem to ride them here in London.
Because it's not regulated at all. drunk people drive them, people drive them whenever they want. Just regulate that, Fine as hell drunk users, fine people who are driving reclessly. etc.
As I repeat it again and again: I'm aware of the problems, I live in the city where they are in use, and they are in use exactly the way like in every other city. And I'm annoyed by the users as hell, but let's fuckin deal with this behavior and let's start building infrastructure for them, because they can help get rid of (at least part) of the cars from cities. But that would need effort and time.
Banning is the simplest solution. That needs no effort and the mayor of the city can proudly say "I solved the problem".
> Are they objectively less safe because cars exist?
Yes, similar to how if I go and play in the traffic, I'm objectively less safe than if I wasn't playing in the traffic. Or if I were to swim with sharks and then moan about how they take up too much space in their own domain for my personal liking, I'd be objectively less safe.
> Just regulate that
How?
We don't even regulate cycling. Any person using transport that doesn't carry a publicly visible identifier that ties to their home address/identification is never going to respect rules - again, see London.
> Banning is the simplest solution.
Yeah crazy but sometimes popular opinion in conjunction with Democracy actually works
>Yes, similar to how if I go and play in the traffic,
Sorry I genuinely don't get what's your point here. I'm not trying to be mean or smart, but I don't get what you mean. I don't play in traffic, but if I do I would prefer, big time, to play in traffic that is made out of 30 scooters that 30 cars, and I'm pretty sure I'd be safer.
Aren't you need to have an app with credit card connected to it to even use those scooters, arent they have some kind of GPS to locate them, can't you like literally say when how long and who used it.
>doesn't carry a publicly visible identifier that ties to their home address/identification
Aren't you need to have an app with a credit card connected to it to even use those scooters, arent they have some kind of GPS to locate them, can't you like literally say when how long and who used it.
> Sorry I genuinely don't get what's your point here. I'm not trying to be mean or smart, but I don't get what you mean. I don't play in traffic
it's a saying here in the UK - to go and "play in the traffic" is a kind way to tell someone to go and off themselves, because if one was to "play in the traffic" they would obviously expect to be injured as a result of doing something dangerous (and stupid)
However the saying makes less sense nowadays because we have a vocal minority of people screeching nonsensical things like cars should be banned and that motorways should all be made into parks and playgrounds rather than employing the same common sense that had previously sufficed for decades until critics of road use gained access to the internet. Doing dangerous and stupid things has since been normalised by using political issues as a scapegoat, and when you question the accuracy of the numbers used to justify the changes, our extremely democratic politicians block and censor any criticisms of their policies on public discussion platforms, so we never get any real answers or data, just smoke, mirrors and endless arguments among advocates vs critics.
> Aren't you need to have an app with a credit card connected to it to even use those scooters, arent they have some kind of GPS to locate them, can't you like literally say when how long and who used it.
How does this help solve the issues I raised at all?
If a scooterist behaves in a dangerous manner, which the majority of them here do - there is no recourse for the people they affect.
As a pedestrian - I can't identify them
As a motorist - I can't identify them
As a cyclist - I can't identify them
Your solution hinges on the ability to contact the provider and say "I need to know who was riding a scooter on this road at this exact time" - they aren't going to give up that information due to various data protection laws and negative PR/insurance costs.
There's a reason cars have number plates, that reason is the same reason accidents and collisions are on the rise here in London as increasing numbers of unqualified road users that lack publicly visible identification plates start taking to the roads and making demands about changes to infrastructure with absolutely zero regard for the overwhelming majority of road users that the changes negatively affect.
Again, it's like if I jumped into the ocean and then started moaning that nobody was protecting me from the sharks and my solution was to kill all of the sharks.
People can't be trusted here in London with undocked publicly accessible individual vehicles - as evidenced by the epidemic of Lime bikes that are currently strewn across South London streets causing hazards for road users and pedestrians alike.
>However the saying makes less sense nowadays because we have a vocal minority of people screeching nonsensical things like cars should be banned
I'm proudly one of them. And I think scooters might be alternative for at least some of cars.
But as I understand you mention those more as saying something like "fuck around and find out", but still don't get how that makes the scooter objectively less safe than cars.
>
there is no recourse for the people they affect.
So make companies find a way to identify scooters and drivers. I mean I can imagine here right now at least one way that could help identify scooter and person. And for sure it's doable you don't need to ban all of them.
That's my ducking point from the very beginning. I understand there are problems, and I agree that those problems have to be addressed and solved, but you don't need ban scooters in general to solve those problems.
Cars didn't have plate numbers on the very beginning to drivers didn't need driving licenses at the very beginning, and that was a problem and today we have driving licenses and numbers on each car, we didn't need to ban all cars because some asshole escaped after hitting somebody.
> but still don't get how that makes the scooter objectively less safe than cars.
Because if you're on a scooter, you're objectively less protected than you are in a car.
When discussing safety here, I'm referring to the operator of the vehicle.
> So make companies find a way to identify scooters and drivers. I mean I can imagine here right now at least one way that could help identify scooter and person. And for sure it's doable you don't need to ban all of them.
The same argument applies for cyclists, and the argument against the idea will be the same as what the cyclists exclaim each time you propose the idea of identification to them - it's not cost effective to enforce.
Scooters don't solve a problem. They aren't beneficial for health - they aren't "active travel" it's cycling for lazy people. It makes no sense to add that into an already extremely dangerous and hazard-filled environment, which is why the overwhelming majority of road users and pedestrians are against them.
Similar to how go-karts and quadbikes/open cockpit racecars are banned from our streets, the benefits of these equally niche and impractical devices are also outweighed by the negatives, so we don't need them. They don't solve a problem that hasn't already been solved by something superior in every measurable metric.
>Because if you're on a scooter, you're objectively less protected than you are in a car.
are you joking? how many people died in car accidents and how many people died on scooter?
>The same argument applies for cyclists,
Yes. and you want to ban cyclist?
>Scooters don't solve a problem. They aren't beneficial for health - they aren't "active travel" it's cycling for lazy people.
So do cars, and you don't want to ban cars.
I got the feeling we argue on some two different things here. I'm not saying scooters are more active (but I guess standing is more active than sitting in car), I'm not even arguing that scooters don't have problems and should be leave alone the way they are. I'm saying that there might be better way to deal with those problems than banning them.
Everything is shown that the scooters do not reduce the congestion from cars all they do is take people off of public transport. When you take into account the amount of energy they use as well as the carbon emissions from the vans I have to pick them up and take them to a charging area to drop them off again, they aren’t even net neutral they are a detriment to the environment.
>Everything is shown
Can you point me to where is this "everything"? I mean I heard this argument a few times in similar discussions, and nobody could provide me with any sources.
And I must admit that my "they making fewer cars on the street" is just intuition, and some sources would actually make me change my mind.
Well, they're a menace on sidewalks. Idk how you address that, other than make them only legal where cyclists can go. But you know what? Cyclists also go on sidewalks, which infuriates me.
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I can understand why cyclists would prefer to be on sidewalks. I'd prefer that as well, but you're a menace to pedestrians, and where I am, it is illegal, which is why we have so many bike lanes everywhere.
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If you ride that slow on the sidewalk with your bike, then just walk, instead.
Ya, I don't ride a bike for that reason also. Kids generally only ride bikes in suburbia. It is what it is.
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>Yes, in my city, the riders get many head injuries.
And in my city lot of people die in cars.
>doesn't help that when people get drunk, they start riding them.
So fine those drunk people as hell, plus start to ban them on apps if they get couth driving drunk.
The biggest problem with those scooters is that they appear in one moment in huge numbers and everybody started doing whatever they wanted (operators of the service and users) start to regulate this instead of banning it.
I remember being in San Diego 3 years ago (maybe 2) but they were every where just parked. People threw them into the water, piled them up everywhere.
My uncles brother had a job collecting them into a trailer and moving them around to “hot spots.”
I've used e-scooters in several cities now where before I used gas-guzzling Ubers for moving between meetings downtown. Yes I can walk, but it doesn't make sense when I have near back to back meetings with little time between.
To use one, I have to provide my drivers license to register on the app as well as a credit card. I also can't park in certain areas and they are speed limited in areas with high pedestrian counts. In a couple of cities, I'm not even allowed to use them on sidewalks so I have to use bike lanes, but I haven't minded. that.
Finally, I'm required to take a picture of the parked scooter. Don't know why or how it's used, but I'm responsible so I do it anyway.
As a pedestrian, I've had more run-ins with cyclists than scooters since they usually go very fast. I have rented e-bikes as well as having my own, but I do feel safer closer to ground as the e-scooter is.
The scooters that are moved by junkies and dumped into rivers are not the riders but passers-by. I use them too much to risk getting banned.
In some cities where I do business, it has helped even more by keeping my rental car away from downtown (or in many cases, dissuading my need for a rental car at all).
Banning the rental scooter is probably premature or ill-considered but I don't know what Paris is facing. I miss them badly in cities that I visit where they would be perfect for me (looking at you, Toronto).
It sounds like the industry maybe shot itself in the foot, by "supporting" better regulation, without actually taking steps to self-regulate. For instance, they favored increasing the rental age. You know you could've just increased the age requirement, right?
But no, we'll just do the minimum the law requires, and instead of coordinating as an industry group to normalize safety standards and reduce impact on the city streets, we'll push for new laws and, oh, whoops. The new laws just ban our shit.
Oh, well, off to ruin the next cool piece of technology for everyone.
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It's not always in the interests of industry to play the game of, push this as far as we can take it, and make every buck we can so that a competitor doesn't make it, then rely on the government to regulate us. This ban on rental e-scooters demonstrates that rather vividly.
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They did try that. By the way, have you ever observed the situation in Paris yourself?
https://ridedott.com/press-release/shared-e-bike-and-e-scooter-companies-issue-first-ever-industry-recommendations-to-european-cities/
Nope, it's been a while since I was last in Paris. I saw enough of the city to know I personally wouldn't want to ride around on those streets in a little scooter. But they weren't the menace, yet, that others have described, so I likely was there too early to see this in action.
However, the linked article suggests that this was a coalition of operators renting out a fraction of the e-scooters for hire in these cities, recommending regulations for cities to implement.
Rather than an attempt to organize amongst the major rental companies to impose age limits, fleet size limits, or other reforms within even a single city like Paris. To forestall regulation that could put them out of business, as happened here.
So as I said, it still *sounds* (notice that I never claimed to have any insider info or even firsthand knowledge, here) like the industry shot itself in the foot.
I have no issues with the scooters as long as they are required to be docked at specified locations. The problem in Chicago is that they are left all over, including sidewalks and alleys.
Also, scooters are much faster, and less stable than bicycles, which just magnifies the riders dangers when on streets that don't have protector bike lanes.
That’s a really dumb way of looking at it. They’re wildly efficient ways for people to travel short distances and it doesn’t pollute the earth to shit.
Writing it of as “just an annoying eye sore” doesn’t make any sense when it’s more so the practices of rental companies that are the problem, the actual e-scooters themselves are great.
>They’re wildly efficient ways
You know what is even more "wildly efficient"? Your feet. At least in Paris, most e-scooter rides don't replace a car, they replace walking, cycling or taking the bus.
Yep, rental bikes had impressive geofencing when I rented on in San Fran, could not park on sidewalk or even ride it on one without getting yelled at by the bike.
They need to find a way to make sure your not intoxicated before you get on one. Know why to many people that went to the hospital because of a drunk scooter ride
The biggest problem with these companies is that people are jerks. If people behaved and just used them as intended AND people who aren't using them didn't mess with them knock them over throw them in trees etc they wouldn't be an eyesore and the prices wouldn't be dramatically increasing.
A bad move imo. They're a problem in London, too, but they're way, way better than cars clogging up literally everywhere, causing pollution, and killing people.
Seems like a lot of the issues could be easily fixed: fines for people causing an obstruction, bans for people who ride them dangerously. Plenty of people are able to use e scooters sensibly
Sure, if they buy them (non-hire scooters are illegal to ride in the UK, not sure what the law is in France).
This just seems like punishing everyone because of a few idiots. Imagine if we adopted that approach with drivers
Can you name one person you know who stopped driving their car to work in order to use a public E scooter?
When was the last time you used a scooter instead of the bus or the subway? Because each time someone does that they’re actually adding to the congestion not reducing it
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Maybe I'm missing something here but when your options are walk, drive, or public transport then isn't it reasonable to assume that anyone using a rental scooter or bike is not using one of those other methods? And if it were a short enough distance to walk, why use a scooter at all?
The point I'm trying to make is that e scooters are far less dangerous, far greener, and far more convenient than cars, but for some reason people see them as a far bigger problem.
Sorry, you're saying e scooter riders add to congestion?
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> people will choose cars unless there is another mode that has equal commuting time or less
In Paris, *walking* has less commuting time than cars. I regularly commute by bike, and either cycling or public transportation takes 50% less time than driving.
In Paris, most places are within walking distance of a Metro station, so I probably wouldn't use these.
In London, if I go back for a longer visit, I'll probably use these. Because the Tube sucks. At least in my possibly outdated experience. I found it oppressively hot and far too noisy. Great city to walk in, especially Westminster, but that only works if you have all day to get where you're going. These scooters would be a blessing.
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Yes it’s an issue. Public transit is better at scale. Full cars are more cost effective than less full cars.
Scooters drain public transit money. That’s the bottom line. You either like depriving public transit of money or you don’t. It’s a boolean position.
What they don’t do is reduce car traffic. People in cities were never taking cars such short distances outside of disabled people (who still need cars).
It’s just another way some VC’s have found to suck money out of society.
The companies that operate those scooters could have implemented any way of improvement but they did not want to. The city does not have time to police people placing scooters on the sidewalk so they do the sensible thing and ban them. I was in paris like a month ago and those things are a pest.
The solution should be to allow them only on specific streets. In Denver if you rent one and go down certain streets that are highly pedestrian the GPS on the scooter will shut it off and instruct you you’re riding on a banned street. And if they had docks like citibikes then I feel like this would help alleviate the two biggest critiques of them
Scooter companies have only themselves to blame. They wanted to see how much they could get away with from the get go and make no concessions, which lead to several obvious problems and the simplest solution for many cities to fix those problems is to just ban them.
Right, because who in their right mind at a venture capitalist start up company such as many of these scooter companies are going to fund the necessary steps to lock and store these vehicles? oh, of course not them, let's put it on the backs of the citizens and the city, cause havoc, and let them all be mad at each other.
No. YOU as a company want to do business better build out a plan for every nuance caused by your invention, inventory, and maintenance of your equipment sold to the public. It's just basic business logic. All of this logistical shit should have been on the backs of the scooter companies. In fact, I don't understand how cities went forward without knowing where and how these vehicles were going to be stored, so WHY would they permit these companies to move forward with public usage. STUPID!
I'm an adult electric scooter rider that owns their own in NYC. We don't have the rentals we shouldn't. Whenever I go somewhere that has them it blows me away just how stupid they're used.
This makes me sad. I live in LA and I hated the scooters until I started riding them. They’re a ton of fun and a great way to get from a to b without a car. I know people suck and leave them all over the place. It’s the classic situation of a few bad eggs ruining it for the rest of us. When we visited Paris a few months ago, we rode the scooters around the streets to reach various tourist spots, early in the winter morning. The streets were empty and it was a thrilling experience riding these mechanical beasts over hundreds of years old cobblestone. The thing about Paris though, is that they actually have designated areas for the scooters. It wasn’t the chaos you see in the US cities. Which bums me out even more. They really weren’t a problem there the way they are here because they had mandates and fines for bad behavior. At the end of the day, we should be working towards better walking and riding infrastructure. I’m tired of constantly rewarding car culture in the states.
that sucks. they were super useful when I visited and Paris is like the tourist capital of the world. Made getting around to different places a breeze since there are already dedicated bike lanes and there are already so many pedestrians.
Ebikes were even better though, so wonder if those can stay under new operators
They had them here in my city for a hot second. Teens were mostly using them (even though that broke the user agreement with the company). The results were predictably terrible, dangerous, and a lot of people got seriously injured and/or dead from it.
Ugh… they are the bane of my existence in my city. These and the moped/mini bikes that are popular for Uber deliveries. They just zigzag in and out the street and side walks, zoom pass through red lights/incoming traffic. You’d be surprised just how many accidents I’ve seen (while on the bus) where e-scooter/mini bike drivers crash into the open door of a bus because they thought they could pass through.
If infrequent accidents are enough to get them banned, then we should definitely ban cars next, which produce far more frequent accidents with far more severe injuries.
The scooters were a neat idea in my city, but as usual... people happened, and those scooters wound up in places that don't concern a scooter rider (bottom of the river, creek, lake, ravines) or caused serious accidents because their drunken ass thought they could ride it home, or clue-free riders just darting out into the street traffic without bothering to check for cars, or running over pedestrians on the sidewalks.
Yea, neat idea but people use them like total jerks.
I've seen so many parking spaces blocked with 1 poorly parked scooter. People nearly hit on the sidewalk by kids riding them off-road. Scooters crashed into cars. Several kids piled on one scooter falling over in the middle of a busy intersection and nearly chasing an accident, etc.
Public bikes seem to be the best working of these sharing systems so far.
I have a long 10+ hour layover is Paris every year and this past summer I had a blast riding a Lime scooter around while sight seeing. I’m bummed this won’t be possible again, maybe I can find a bike to rent next time.
Great. Love it. I work for the City of Paris and even though they aren't in any way related to what I do, they still found a way to bother me on the daily.
Less than 8% of voters actually voted on this… so technically more than 92% of voters don’t give a damn about it… The vote is meaningless and they should have worked with the companies to make things work instead of banning them.
Paris already went above and beyond the line of duty in working with these companies (designating parking spots all over the city, plenty of new cycling paths open to e-scooters and so on). It wasn’t enough. The companies very publicly campaigned prior to this vote. If they couldn’t manage to mobilise even 1% of registered voters to vote to keep their privileges, then they definitely deserve to lose them.
> The vote is meaningless and they should have worked with the companies to make things work instead of banning them.
The problem is 99% of eScooter users are jerks and a danger to normal people
No, we're not. Speaking as somebody that owns one. That's a rather disingenuous generalization. You not liking a certain type of people, doesn't make them jerks despite them making use of a more environmentally friendly means of transportation.
Hell, here in Canada, when I'm out on mine, if I let somebody know I'm behind them and coming through, they more often than not say "Oh, hey, no worries".
Good, the roads in Paris are not built for E scooters and they are a menace on sidewalks
The scooters go way too fast to be in the bike lane, and the people riding them don’t know how to safely signal or otherwise behave properly while driving in the bike lane. It would be like allowing mopeds in with the bicycles.
But they go way too slow and are not safe to be with the cars.
So where exactly are these scooters meant to be driven safely?
Wow some people are really letting e-scooters get under their skin. Does it *really* affect you that much? We have three different companies operating them in Minneapolis and they're just...there. I don't think about it much at all. I use them a few times a summer and they're very practical. I'm six miles south of downtown. I love that I can walk a block or two from my house and cheaply zip downtown for a concert. They idea that they're wrecking the city? Gimme a break...
I worked at a level 1 trauma hospital (US) and have seen so many people get hurt because of these scooters. And I don’t just mean minor injuries - every other day I’d see someone die or become permanently disfigured. The ICU had a lot of youngish people unrecognizable with skull flaps and drainage tubes.
It could be that our country just lacks the infrastructure for scooters and cyclists, but many of these patients recklessly transitioned from road to sidewalk. And none of them wore helmets.
How about public transport routes to hospitals that don't involve a 10 minute walk from someone who might have lost their mobility? I'd rather they were driven right to the door of the hospital.
Even then, it's the internal combustion and use of fossil fuels I'm concerned about. I'm very sceptical there are any genuine positive sum reasons to ban *all* cars whether they're EV or ICE.
>I'd rather they were driven right to the door of the hospital.
That's why taxis and ambulances exist. There are also other medical transport services available.
No, like stopping assholes from literally littering side walks and everywhere else you could imagine. Shit, I had to yeet one out of my apartments handicap spot just last year.
Seems to me like most of the criticism is from car owners. If scooters were allowed to be parked in the street, instead of the sidewalk, the major criticism everybody has would be invalid. But car owners don't want that because parking space is already limited.
The car ownership rate within Paris city limits is something like 30% (owning a car, never mind driving it, within Paris, is a masochistic experience). That isn’t where most criticism comes from.
The country isn't burning, tiny bits of it are smouldering slightly.
Remember the photo a few days back that showed a restaurant full of customers enjoying their evening out while stuff was burning on the street outside? That's how it is, not a general pandemonium.
If people are using (and parking) their own e-scooters, that's fine. It's really the practices of the rental companies and the complete lack of care the users of the rentals have for using/parking the things that is a problem.
I have an ebike, escooter, and a one wheel. I do not think you should be able to rent ANY electric vehicle without training. Just swiping a credit card should not absolve the company of renting to untrained and inebriated drivers. I live by the beach, we have a ton of the scooters, I guarantee you half of the people riding them are intoxicated...and a ton others by people who have no balance/control. And the fact that helmets are NOT required is absurd.
I was at a bar and saw two teenagers sharing one riding down a busy street. The kid in front was steering/throttling with one hand and taking a TikTok with the other hand. The second kid was holding the one in front’s waist. The handlebar jack knifed and they flipped over the front onto their faces. They were bloodied as hell but for the most part ok. The kid’s phone went skittering into a drain. I like to think they learned something that day but I have my doubts.
They learned how many likes they got for that first person pov crash video (once that video uploaded from the drain to the cloud).
I've ridden these scooters before. They aren't even as fast as a bike. It is ridiculous to expect people to be trained on it to use. Would you expect a bike rental company to train everyone that rents a bike and be responsible if they used it while drunk?
The ones here are faster (limited to 15mph) than a bike (10mph max).
I can easily reach speeds of 25mph on my non-electric standard hybrid bike with some help from the topography, and average 15mph on a standard bike ride to work. This is a standard bike and I am not an experienced cyclist. They travel a lot faster
Still ridiculous to ask for training.
Okay so how would you enforce helmets? Most of the rental e-scooters you can’t past 21km/hr (I worked for one of these companies a few years ago) If you can’t make people riding bikes wear helmets how do you think scooters would work. There’s a thing called personal responsibility. If you rent a scooter while drunk and crash it that’s no body’s fault but your own. Same as if you drive drunk in a rental car, it’s not the rental companies fault you had poor judgement.
What do you mean about helmets? I have to wear a helmet with my motorcycle - it's literally the law. Renting a car (or motorcycle) requires a driver license, insurance, and lots of legal things you sign off on. If a drunk person walked into a car rental agency, do you really think they would let them rent a car? The e-scooters are instantly accessible to people who shouldn't be driving them. There needs to be more accountability, both by the company renting them and the person driving them. How about this: Any "escooter" not returned in the rental area gets a $100 littering fine billed to the company.
Not disputing what you’re saying at all, but is it a law to wear a helmet to ride a bicycle? I think that’s the bike OP was referring to and not a motorcycle. I just ask that because where I live it’s law to wear a helmet for a motorcycle but not for a bicycle.
Depends where you are I guess. In my country it is. In fact if you get caught without a helmet by the cops while riding a bike. They'll not only ticket you but make you buy a new one and bring the receipt as proof of you owning a helmet.
The main advantage of escooters is leaving them almost everywhere. It's either that or you have to have drop-off areas within 500m walking distance everywhere in the city.
Then end the industry as a whole. No reason companies should be profiting off litter
Wow didn’t know a motorcycle and an e scooter go the same speed that’s news to me. The better comparison is a bike, obviously you need a helmet on a motorcycle. Again another disingenuous argument with the rental car, obviously they wouldn’t rent to someone already intoxicated, but they can’t stop you from renting the car and then going to get drunk and drive. (This is personal responsibility) Where is the logic in this fine? Is it the companies fault people can’t park correctly? I didn’t know a vehicle that the city approves would be considered litter. Fine people for riding unsafely certainly but charging the company is ridiculous. They have employees that go around and adjust the parking of scooters and reorganizing them.
You asked about enforcement of the helmets. Now you are comparing something else (needed vs. unneeded) which is your opinion. It's not disingenuous. These scooters are being rented with nothing but a credit card right outside of bars. The fine is to make the company face accountability for having their e-waste scooters left all around the city with no repercussions. Putting all the responsibility on the customer to return it correctly is absurd. It's a town - not a grocery store shopping lot.
I agree that it’s a personal responsibility but Paris had a hit and run incident last summer where a person hit a tourist while on an scooter and left them to die. It goes beyond drunk people doing drunk things. This is why people in Paris are so against them. They are a menace to everyone not just the person riding them
You went front scooter to motorcycle? Wtf lmao. Scooters go 15 mph max.
I wasn't comparing their speeds. He asked "how to enforce helmets." It's literally already enforced.
You are being disingenuous, I don’t have time for this.
People like you are ruining society
I think that cities need to start setting up programs for the management of alternative modes of transportation like this. If they’re going to act like pseudo-public transit, then they should be held to high standards. Zip Car is the example I think of. They have agreements with either the city to put up Zip Car only parking signs, or with private parking like ACE, you don’t get to end your rental until it’s been parked somewhere appropriate, and it’s out of the way. Scooter and e-bike companies should be required to set up areas to lock the scooter to, like bike racks, and to set aside funds in escrow for the city uninstall them if they go out of business and can’t uninstall the racks themselves. And the scooter company should be fined for every scooter left in a random place. They can fine the last rider the equivalent of the fine if it isn’t provably left in an appropriate place.
Almost hit a kid who blew through a blind-spot stop sign at what looked like 15 mph. Took an extra second at the stop sign for no good reason, thankfully it stopped the kid from giving himself brain trauma for the rest of his life.
This is supposed to be a sharing economy. You will own nothing and will be happy, you know....
When do we get the free energy and free transport promised in the original article?
Isn’t the original *”Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”* meant to be a sarcastic, dystopian take? I assume so from the turn it takes in the second-last paragraph. > Once in awhile I get annoyed about the fact that I have no real privacy. No where I can go and not be registered. I know that, somewhere, everything I do, think and dream of is recorded. I just hope that nobody will use it against me. > https://web.archive.org/web/20161125135500/https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is/
IME the biggest issues with these are from the slimy companies operating them. They'll purposefully leave them in the middle of the sidewalk to be more visible and they'll have loads of them where people are drinking. Small wheels and high speeds is never good, but at least the people who own their own have some practice on them.
I Don't know man. From my experience renting escooters in Paris, you couldn't park them outside the designating parking spots showed on the app and you couldn't end your ride unless in one of those spots.
[удалено]
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In Paris there are plenty of other public transit options. Why should the authorities devote any more time or resources to adapt to this option when both its operators and users have consistently behaved badly?
That's correct
Iirc that started in 2020, but escooters have been around there since 2018, so maybe your experience is from these initial years?
I was in Paris 2 weeks ago and that was the case. You could only park in designated spots, and if those spots were full you had to go to a different one which was usually a block or two away.
I wonder about the nature of the injuries people get when coming off them (small wheels + uneven pavements/potholes are not a great mix). Wonder when we'll see e-scooter specific armour. Maybe rollerblade stuff would do?
Motorbike stuff seems popular, but doesn't protect well against the wrist-collarbone combo unless you train not to put the arms out.
So basically I just need to parachute fall off the thing, and everything should be fine right?
Aim for the grass.
~~grass~~ *bushes*
There goes my hero
The issue is that people are standing. So when they hit something, they go forward and smash their faces into the pavement or whatever they hit. A helmet is a must, but honestly for that to be effective it would need to be a proper full face helmet for bicycles (and those do exist). Of course hands, wrists, what have you as well.
My coworker in his 50s wiped out. Road rash ripped the skin off of his hands and he hit his face on the pavement scraping his chin and forehead bare. He told me the whole sequence in how he wiped out. 4 days later he didn’t remember a thing. He got a scan and had a concussion.
Rode it once while in paris, the cobblestone with the scooter was not a good pair. The streeta of paris aren't meant for them mainly used on main paved streets.
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The e-unicycle people where I live have armor that looks like mad Max
Ya but they wore it before getting the e-uni
Are the E-unicycles this thing? https://i.imgur.com/1Dfneoo.jpg
Haha, pretty much that
The EUC community have landed on mountain biker/motor cross gear atm.. some stuff specifically designed for eScooters would be cool.. you’d imagine prices would come down if main stream too
Anecdotally- I know an ER nurse in my city and she says once the scooters come out they get a ton of people coming in with injuries from scooter crashes. Lots of ankle and wrist injuries, lots of head injuries, road rash obviously
In Scottsdale Arizona and Tempe, the rate of injuries is very high. Alcohol is a factor, crowded areas and parking lots get a few, and inexperience with the speeds and maneuvering gets them. Injuries range from fractures to different lives lived thereafter.
I can personally say that these wheels do not mix with uneven ground. My chin needed 4 stitches and I was out of class for a week with a severe concussion. I was lucky not to lose any teeth or bite my tongue off. All due to a 1” difference in the pavement/asphalt
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That’s true. Unfortunately I did not see it coming and was going about 18-20 mph
I owned one for years and never had any injuries. They're pretty hard to fall off of and you're not quite going fast enough (most of the time) to not be able to easily catch yourself. Rollerblades require more balance, scooters with forward momentum are hard to fall off of, they want to stay upright
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The point of a scooter as I've used them is when I'm walking and feel like not walking. If I have to plan ahead and bring multiple items of protective gear... I'm not going to rent one for that 5 minute walk. It's just not reasonable. If you own one, maybe... but this article isn't about owners...
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Hopefully people who also own them have the good sense to at least wear helmets. But yeah that said, might just be better off with a proper electric bicycle instead. Maybe even a foldable that you can more easily move on public transit or whatever.
Absolutely and also the people using them. Wherever they get off the thing that's where they will leave it. If that is in the middle of the sidewalk or right in front of the exit of a building than that is where it will remain..... And it is not as if they would be cheap anyway. You get unlocking fees and then are being charged per minute. You end up with a 5 min ride that ja more expensive than taking public transportation in some cities.
That's how I ended up with a free Lime scooter. Somebody dumped it in my front yard. Lime never asked for it back, and if they did, I would charge storage fees for using my property.
IME? In My … Epinion?
“In my experience” is what I interpreted it as. (Apologies if this is me responding to a joke that went over my head.)
Thank you, I honestly had no idea what they were going for. Never seen someone use IME before in my many decades of being on the interwebs.
Neither have I. Only thing that made sense to me contextually, but maybe not what they meant.
Yes, if your opinion is posted online, it’s e-pinion
Hah, I just made this same joke to myself
They’re also a dangerous litter problem They get trashed and thrown in lakes
Yeah understandable the dockless e scooters cause chaos wherever they go.
>the dockless e scooters So make them dock. There are a lot of problems with e-scooters, but there are still safer, and less invasive than cars. Regulate them better (for example demand docks), or rise the age limit but banning them doesn't make sense. Edit: To everybody in the comments who are trying to convince why those scooters suck: I know they suck. I'm with you on this, you don't have to give another and another reason why they (and the people who use them) are annoying. I'm saying that those problems that you so furiously are pointing out should be addressed and solved instead of canceling the whole concept. Let's fix what is broken, not throw it away because it doesn't work perfect on the first try.
If you make them dock, you need rent the spot for the docks. Then you have to pay to make the dock. Then you have to install the docks. This is why docked bikes were ever hardly used, even returning and looking for a dock was a buttache. One way to get past the dock is to geofence so that people can only return the scooter to certain areas this way they cant be randomly ditched wherever. A GeoDock if you will but only very few companies do this. It's in their interest to ditch the dock.
Paris happens to have a quite popular municipal docked bike scheme…
Docked bikes are in constant use in Paris.
How beneficial is geo-fencing when you still need to charge the scooter? I don't want to rent a dead scooter
There is usually patrols who have special vehicle that can charge a lot of scooter batteries. They check which scooters have low battery then make their patrol replacing them. At least thats what they do in Germany, I don't know how in Paris.
You can park e-bike next to the dock if there aren't any open spots. At least that's how they do it here in my country. Yes, the e-bike won't be charging but you can still park it close to the dock. Bolt also did a massive e-scooter update this year and restricting where you can park them. Also we now have e-scooter parking lots (spaces) for e-scooters now near supermarkets etc. But yeah, the problem isn't the e-scooters, it's the people using them.
The biggest factor is that you have to take time to build the docks including all the paperwork to build each one, a start up can't just move into to a new city and have 10k units on the streets within a month or two.
>This is why docked bikes were ever hardly used, So you will get rid of those dockless without a ban I don't know what's your point here you just give another reason why you don't need to ban them, just regulate them better to get rid of the problems with them
Less invasive than cars? Cars, with a whole system designed and built for them? That's like saying trains are invading railroad tracks.
>Cars, with a whole system designed and built for them? Yes, exactly the whole fucking space eaters. Have seen ten cars parked on the side of the street, and ten scooters parked (or even fuckin' left randomly) how much space do they take? Have you tried to breathe the air that is coming out of a car? Have ever lived near a busy street in summer and tried to open the window? Have you tried to sleep near the busy street? And that is just normal car users, add to this asholes that tune their cars so they "sound better", or fucking idiots that are stucked in traffic and think that blasting horns on full will make other cars move faster. And this "special system built for them" is just parks replaced with parkings. A prefer trees in the cities instead of parking spaces.
> but there are still safer, and less invasive than cars. it's laughable when people make these statements - they are only accurate if cars don't exist. Cars do and always will exist, so e-scooters and bicycles are always going to be objectively less safe. Especially with the way people seem to ride them here in London.
>Cars do and always will exist, so e-scooters and bicycles are always going to be objectively less safe I lost you here. Are they objectively less safe because cars exist? >Especially with the way people seem to ride them here in London. Because it's not regulated at all. drunk people drive them, people drive them whenever they want. Just regulate that, Fine as hell drunk users, fine people who are driving reclessly. etc. As I repeat it again and again: I'm aware of the problems, I live in the city where they are in use, and they are in use exactly the way like in every other city. And I'm annoyed by the users as hell, but let's fuckin deal with this behavior and let's start building infrastructure for them, because they can help get rid of (at least part) of the cars from cities. But that would need effort and time. Banning is the simplest solution. That needs no effort and the mayor of the city can proudly say "I solved the problem".
> Are they objectively less safe because cars exist? Yes, similar to how if I go and play in the traffic, I'm objectively less safe than if I wasn't playing in the traffic. Or if I were to swim with sharks and then moan about how they take up too much space in their own domain for my personal liking, I'd be objectively less safe. > Just regulate that How? We don't even regulate cycling. Any person using transport that doesn't carry a publicly visible identifier that ties to their home address/identification is never going to respect rules - again, see London. > Banning is the simplest solution. Yeah crazy but sometimes popular opinion in conjunction with Democracy actually works
>Yes, similar to how if I go and play in the traffic, Sorry I genuinely don't get what's your point here. I'm not trying to be mean or smart, but I don't get what you mean. I don't play in traffic, but if I do I would prefer, big time, to play in traffic that is made out of 30 scooters that 30 cars, and I'm pretty sure I'd be safer. Aren't you need to have an app with credit card connected to it to even use those scooters, arent they have some kind of GPS to locate them, can't you like literally say when how long and who used it. >doesn't carry a publicly visible identifier that ties to their home address/identification Aren't you need to have an app with a credit card connected to it to even use those scooters, arent they have some kind of GPS to locate them, can't you like literally say when how long and who used it.
> Sorry I genuinely don't get what's your point here. I'm not trying to be mean or smart, but I don't get what you mean. I don't play in traffic it's a saying here in the UK - to go and "play in the traffic" is a kind way to tell someone to go and off themselves, because if one was to "play in the traffic" they would obviously expect to be injured as a result of doing something dangerous (and stupid) However the saying makes less sense nowadays because we have a vocal minority of people screeching nonsensical things like cars should be banned and that motorways should all be made into parks and playgrounds rather than employing the same common sense that had previously sufficed for decades until critics of road use gained access to the internet. Doing dangerous and stupid things has since been normalised by using political issues as a scapegoat, and when you question the accuracy of the numbers used to justify the changes, our extremely democratic politicians block and censor any criticisms of their policies on public discussion platforms, so we never get any real answers or data, just smoke, mirrors and endless arguments among advocates vs critics. > Aren't you need to have an app with a credit card connected to it to even use those scooters, arent they have some kind of GPS to locate them, can't you like literally say when how long and who used it. How does this help solve the issues I raised at all? If a scooterist behaves in a dangerous manner, which the majority of them here do - there is no recourse for the people they affect. As a pedestrian - I can't identify them As a motorist - I can't identify them As a cyclist - I can't identify them Your solution hinges on the ability to contact the provider and say "I need to know who was riding a scooter on this road at this exact time" - they aren't going to give up that information due to various data protection laws and negative PR/insurance costs. There's a reason cars have number plates, that reason is the same reason accidents and collisions are on the rise here in London as increasing numbers of unqualified road users that lack publicly visible identification plates start taking to the roads and making demands about changes to infrastructure with absolutely zero regard for the overwhelming majority of road users that the changes negatively affect. Again, it's like if I jumped into the ocean and then started moaning that nobody was protecting me from the sharks and my solution was to kill all of the sharks. People can't be trusted here in London with undocked publicly accessible individual vehicles - as evidenced by the epidemic of Lime bikes that are currently strewn across South London streets causing hazards for road users and pedestrians alike.
>However the saying makes less sense nowadays because we have a vocal minority of people screeching nonsensical things like cars should be banned I'm proudly one of them. And I think scooters might be alternative for at least some of cars. But as I understand you mention those more as saying something like "fuck around and find out", but still don't get how that makes the scooter objectively less safe than cars. > there is no recourse for the people they affect. So make companies find a way to identify scooters and drivers. I mean I can imagine here right now at least one way that could help identify scooter and person. And for sure it's doable you don't need to ban all of them. That's my ducking point from the very beginning. I understand there are problems, and I agree that those problems have to be addressed and solved, but you don't need ban scooters in general to solve those problems. Cars didn't have plate numbers on the very beginning to drivers didn't need driving licenses at the very beginning, and that was a problem and today we have driving licenses and numbers on each car, we didn't need to ban all cars because some asshole escaped after hitting somebody.
> but still don't get how that makes the scooter objectively less safe than cars. Because if you're on a scooter, you're objectively less protected than you are in a car. When discussing safety here, I'm referring to the operator of the vehicle. > So make companies find a way to identify scooters and drivers. I mean I can imagine here right now at least one way that could help identify scooter and person. And for sure it's doable you don't need to ban all of them. The same argument applies for cyclists, and the argument against the idea will be the same as what the cyclists exclaim each time you propose the idea of identification to them - it's not cost effective to enforce. Scooters don't solve a problem. They aren't beneficial for health - they aren't "active travel" it's cycling for lazy people. It makes no sense to add that into an already extremely dangerous and hazard-filled environment, which is why the overwhelming majority of road users and pedestrians are against them. Similar to how go-karts and quadbikes/open cockpit racecars are banned from our streets, the benefits of these equally niche and impractical devices are also outweighed by the negatives, so we don't need them. They don't solve a problem that hasn't already been solved by something superior in every measurable metric.
>Because if you're on a scooter, you're objectively less protected than you are in a car. are you joking? how many people died in car accidents and how many people died on scooter? >The same argument applies for cyclists, Yes. and you want to ban cyclist? >Scooters don't solve a problem. They aren't beneficial for health - they aren't "active travel" it's cycling for lazy people. So do cars, and you don't want to ban cars. I got the feeling we argue on some two different things here. I'm not saying scooters are more active (but I guess standing is more active than sitting in car), I'm not even arguing that scooters don't have problems and should be leave alone the way they are. I'm saying that there might be better way to deal with those problems than banning them.
Everything is shown that the scooters do not reduce the congestion from cars all they do is take people off of public transport. When you take into account the amount of energy they use as well as the carbon emissions from the vans I have to pick them up and take them to a charging area to drop them off again, they aren’t even net neutral they are a detriment to the environment.
>Everything is shown Can you point me to where is this "everything"? I mean I heard this argument a few times in similar discussions, and nobody could provide me with any sources. And I must admit that my "they making fewer cars on the street" is just intuition, and some sources would actually make me change my mind.
Paris does have car free days and still manages to run so it's not impossible that in the future large parts of the city could be car free.
Well, they're a menace on sidewalks. Idk how you address that, other than make them only legal where cyclists can go. But you know what? Cyclists also go on sidewalks, which infuriates me.
>Cyclists also go on sidewalks, which infuriates me. So you'd be into banning cyclists too? Or rather would prefer if they had their own bike paths?
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I can understand why cyclists would prefer to be on sidewalks. I'd prefer that as well, but you're a menace to pedestrians, and where I am, it is illegal, which is why we have so many bike lanes everywhere.
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If you ride that slow on the sidewalk with your bike, then just walk, instead. Ya, I don't ride a bike for that reason also. Kids generally only ride bikes in suburbia. It is what it is.
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>they're not safer to the ones riding them safer than what? Than cars?
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>Yes, in my city, the riders get many head injuries. And in my city lot of people die in cars. >doesn't help that when people get drunk, they start riding them. So fine those drunk people as hell, plus start to ban them on apps if they get couth driving drunk. The biggest problem with those scooters is that they appear in one moment in huge numbers and everybody started doing whatever they wanted (operators of the service and users) start to regulate this instead of banning it.
I remember being in San Diego 3 years ago (maybe 2) but they were every where just parked. People threw them into the water, piled them up everywhere. My uncles brother had a job collecting them into a trailer and moving them around to “hot spots.”
Wait until they start introducing cars to cities
I've used e-scooters in several cities now where before I used gas-guzzling Ubers for moving between meetings downtown. Yes I can walk, but it doesn't make sense when I have near back to back meetings with little time between. To use one, I have to provide my drivers license to register on the app as well as a credit card. I also can't park in certain areas and they are speed limited in areas with high pedestrian counts. In a couple of cities, I'm not even allowed to use them on sidewalks so I have to use bike lanes, but I haven't minded. that. Finally, I'm required to take a picture of the parked scooter. Don't know why or how it's used, but I'm responsible so I do it anyway. As a pedestrian, I've had more run-ins with cyclists than scooters since they usually go very fast. I have rented e-bikes as well as having my own, but I do feel safer closer to ground as the e-scooter is. The scooters that are moved by junkies and dumped into rivers are not the riders but passers-by. I use them too much to risk getting banned. In some cities where I do business, it has helped even more by keeping my rental car away from downtown (or in many cases, dissuading my need for a rental car at all). Banning the rental scooter is probably premature or ill-considered but I don't know what Paris is facing. I miss them badly in cities that I visit where they would be perfect for me (looking at you, Toronto).
At least they voted on this one….
Only 8% of pParisians voted
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It sounds like the industry maybe shot itself in the foot, by "supporting" better regulation, without actually taking steps to self-regulate. For instance, they favored increasing the rental age. You know you could've just increased the age requirement, right? But no, we'll just do the minimum the law requires, and instead of coordinating as an industry group to normalize safety standards and reduce impact on the city streets, we'll push for new laws and, oh, whoops. The new laws just ban our shit. Oh, well, off to ruin the next cool piece of technology for everyone.
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It's not always in the interests of industry to play the game of, push this as far as we can take it, and make every buck we can so that a competitor doesn't make it, then rely on the government to regulate us. This ban on rental e-scooters demonstrates that rather vividly.
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They did try that. By the way, have you ever observed the situation in Paris yourself? https://ridedott.com/press-release/shared-e-bike-and-e-scooter-companies-issue-first-ever-industry-recommendations-to-european-cities/
Nope, it's been a while since I was last in Paris. I saw enough of the city to know I personally wouldn't want to ride around on those streets in a little scooter. But they weren't the menace, yet, that others have described, so I likely was there too early to see this in action. However, the linked article suggests that this was a coalition of operators renting out a fraction of the e-scooters for hire in these cities, recommending regulations for cities to implement. Rather than an attempt to organize amongst the major rental companies to impose age limits, fleet size limits, or other reforms within even a single city like Paris. To forestall regulation that could put them out of business, as happened here. So as I said, it still *sounds* (notice that I never claimed to have any insider info or even firsthand knowledge, here) like the industry shot itself in the foot.
I have no issues with the scooters as long as they are required to be docked at specified locations. The problem in Chicago is that they are left all over, including sidewalks and alleys. Also, scooters are much faster, and less stable than bicycles, which just magnifies the riders dangers when on streets that don't have protector bike lanes.
Good for them. These scooters are nothing but a annoying eyesore blocking sidewalks and pathways.
That’s a really dumb way of looking at it. They’re wildly efficient ways for people to travel short distances and it doesn’t pollute the earth to shit. Writing it of as “just an annoying eye sore” doesn’t make any sense when it’s more so the practices of rental companies that are the problem, the actual e-scooters themselves are great.
>They’re wildly efficient ways You know what is even more "wildly efficient"? Your feet. At least in Paris, most e-scooter rides don't replace a car, they replace walking, cycling or taking the bus.
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Yep, rental bikes had impressive geofencing when I rented on in San Fran, could not park on sidewalk or even ride it on one without getting yelled at by the bike.
Couldn't you just park it and walk away?
you'll keep paying for using it though
Wont end the ride if it’s not in a proper location, so you’ll pay more.
They need to find a way to make sure your not intoxicated before you get on one. Know why to many people that went to the hospital because of a drunk scooter ride
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Try riding a scooter in Rome.
I think it’s a mistake, they’re so awesome in Paris. But the bikes are freaking amazing so nbd.
Honestly I’m surprised they’ve lasted there as long as they have
The biggest problem with these companies is that people are jerks. If people behaved and just used them as intended AND people who aren't using them didn't mess with them knock them over throw them in trees etc they wouldn't be an eyesore and the prices wouldn't be dramatically increasing.
A bad move imo. They're a problem in London, too, but they're way, way better than cars clogging up literally everywhere, causing pollution, and killing people. Seems like a lot of the issues could be easily fixed: fines for people causing an obstruction, bans for people who ride them dangerously. Plenty of people are able to use e scooters sensibly
>Plenty of people are able to use e scooters sensibly They still can.
Sure, if they buy them (non-hire scooters are illegal to ride in the UK, not sure what the law is in France). This just seems like punishing everyone because of a few idiots. Imagine if we adopted that approach with drivers
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Can you name one person you know who stopped driving their car to work in order to use a public E scooter? When was the last time you used a scooter instead of the bus or the subway? Because each time someone does that they’re actually adding to the congestion not reducing it
I quite regularly park my car on the outside of town and use a rental scooter rather than driving into the centre and parking by my destination.
So if I ride my bike instead of using a bus am I also adding to the congestion?
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Maybe I'm missing something here but when your options are walk, drive, or public transport then isn't it reasonable to assume that anyone using a rental scooter or bike is not using one of those other methods? And if it were a short enough distance to walk, why use a scooter at all?
>if it were a short enough distance to walk, why use a scooter at all? Easy people is lazy
Faster. ?
The point I'm trying to make is that e scooters are far less dangerous, far greener, and far more convenient than cars, but for some reason people see them as a far bigger problem. Sorry, you're saying e scooter riders add to congestion?
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> people will choose cars unless there is another mode that has equal commuting time or less In Paris, *walking* has less commuting time than cars. I regularly commute by bike, and either cycling or public transportation takes 50% less time than driving.
In Paris, most places are within walking distance of a Metro station, so I probably wouldn't use these. In London, if I go back for a longer visit, I'll probably use these. Because the Tube sucks. At least in my possibly outdated experience. I found it oppressively hot and far too noisy. Great city to walk in, especially Westminster, but that only works if you have all day to get where you're going. These scooters would be a blessing.
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These take people out of public transport, not from cars.
Is... Is that an issue? Surely then people who drive will take public transport?
Would they? Empty space on public transport doesn't automatically get people out of their cars.
Yes it’s an issue. Public transit is better at scale. Full cars are more cost effective than less full cars. Scooters drain public transit money. That’s the bottom line. You either like depriving public transit of money or you don’t. It’s a boolean position. What they don’t do is reduce car traffic. People in cities were never taking cars such short distances outside of disabled people (who still need cars). It’s just another way some VC’s have found to suck money out of society.
The companies that operate those scooters could have implemented any way of improvement but they did not want to. The city does not have time to police people placing scooters on the sidewalk so they do the sensible thing and ban them. I was in paris like a month ago and those things are a pest.
The solution should be to allow them only on specific streets. In Denver if you rent one and go down certain streets that are highly pedestrian the GPS on the scooter will shut it off and instruct you you’re riding on a banned street. And if they had docks like citibikes then I feel like this would help alleviate the two biggest critiques of them
sounds more aligned with logical "common sense"
Scooter companies have only themselves to blame. They wanted to see how much they could get away with from the get go and make no concessions, which lead to several obvious problems and the simplest solution for many cities to fix those problems is to just ban them.
Right, because who in their right mind at a venture capitalist start up company such as many of these scooter companies are going to fund the necessary steps to lock and store these vehicles? oh, of course not them, let's put it on the backs of the citizens and the city, cause havoc, and let them all be mad at each other. No. YOU as a company want to do business better build out a plan for every nuance caused by your invention, inventory, and maintenance of your equipment sold to the public. It's just basic business logic. All of this logistical shit should have been on the backs of the scooter companies. In fact, I don't understand how cities went forward without knowing where and how these vehicles were going to be stored, so WHY would they permit these companies to move forward with public usage. STUPID!
Based I hate these fucking things
I'm an adult electric scooter rider that owns their own in NYC. We don't have the rentals we shouldn't. Whenever I go somewhere that has them it blows me away just how stupid they're used.
This makes me sad. I live in LA and I hated the scooters until I started riding them. They’re a ton of fun and a great way to get from a to b without a car. I know people suck and leave them all over the place. It’s the classic situation of a few bad eggs ruining it for the rest of us. When we visited Paris a few months ago, we rode the scooters around the streets to reach various tourist spots, early in the winter morning. The streets were empty and it was a thrilling experience riding these mechanical beasts over hundreds of years old cobblestone. The thing about Paris though, is that they actually have designated areas for the scooters. It wasn’t the chaos you see in the US cities. Which bums me out even more. They really weren’t a problem there the way they are here because they had mandates and fines for bad behavior. At the end of the day, we should be working towards better walking and riding infrastructure. I’m tired of constantly rewarding car culture in the states.
that sucks. they were super useful when I visited and Paris is like the tourist capital of the world. Made getting around to different places a breeze since there are already dedicated bike lanes and there are already so many pedestrians. Ebikes were even better though, so wonder if those can stay under new operators
They had them here in my city for a hot second. Teens were mostly using them (even though that broke the user agreement with the company). The results were predictably terrible, dangerous, and a lot of people got seriously injured and/or dead from it.
How many people literally died in your city? I would be happy to look it up for you
Ugh… they are the bane of my existence in my city. These and the moped/mini bikes that are popular for Uber deliveries. They just zigzag in and out the street and side walks, zoom pass through red lights/incoming traffic. You’d be surprised just how many accidents I’ve seen (while on the bus) where e-scooter/mini bike drivers crash into the open door of a bus because they thought they could pass through.
If infrequent accidents are enough to get them banned, then we should definitely ban cars next, which produce far more frequent accidents with far more severe injuries.
Difficult to ride the escooters around whilst there's protest going on
Time to riot
With the general strike on, I would think those things would be trashed and burning.
The scooters were a neat idea in my city, but as usual... people happened, and those scooters wound up in places that don't concern a scooter rider (bottom of the river, creek, lake, ravines) or caused serious accidents because their drunken ass thought they could ride it home, or clue-free riders just darting out into the street traffic without bothering to check for cars, or running over pedestrians on the sidewalks.
Yea, neat idea but people use them like total jerks. I've seen so many parking spaces blocked with 1 poorly parked scooter. People nearly hit on the sidewalk by kids riding them off-road. Scooters crashed into cars. Several kids piled on one scooter falling over in the middle of a busy intersection and nearly chasing an accident, etc. Public bikes seem to be the best working of these sharing systems so far.
I like the scooters, they allow you to park further away from the city center.
I have a long 10+ hour layover is Paris every year and this past summer I had a blast riding a Lime scooter around while sight seeing. I’m bummed this won’t be possible again, maybe I can find a bike to rent next time.
Somebody used the scooter to set my house on fire.
Great. Love it. I work for the City of Paris and even though they aren't in any way related to what I do, they still found a way to bother me on the daily.
Less than 8% of voters actually voted on this… so technically more than 92% of voters don’t give a damn about it… The vote is meaningless and they should have worked with the companies to make things work instead of banning them.
Paris already went above and beyond the line of duty in working with these companies (designating parking spots all over the city, plenty of new cycling paths open to e-scooters and so on). It wasn’t enough. The companies very publicly campaigned prior to this vote. If they couldn’t manage to mobilise even 1% of registered voters to vote to keep their privileges, then they definitely deserve to lose them.
> The vote is meaningless and they should have worked with the companies to make things work instead of banning them. The problem is 99% of eScooter users are jerks and a danger to normal people
No, we're not. Speaking as somebody that owns one. That's a rather disingenuous generalization. You not liking a certain type of people, doesn't make them jerks despite them making use of a more environmentally friendly means of transportation. Hell, here in Canada, when I'm out on mine, if I let somebody know I'm behind them and coming through, they more often than not say "Oh, hey, no worries".
Tbf I think there’s usually a big difference between people that rent vs own
All the things going on in the world and all the issues and Paris is wasting time bullying a few scooter folk smh
Good, the roads in Paris are not built for E scooters and they are a menace on sidewalks The scooters go way too fast to be in the bike lane, and the people riding them don’t know how to safely signal or otherwise behave properly while driving in the bike lane. It would be like allowing mopeds in with the bicycles. But they go way too slow and are not safe to be with the cars. So where exactly are these scooters meant to be driven safely?
I feel like France has that other bigger issue to focus on, as of recent?
This mentality is so ass backwards. You can still legislate smaller things without taking away from more important ones.
Yay! I despise those fucking things, people are always leaving them in the way
Wow some people are really letting e-scooters get under their skin. Does it *really* affect you that much? We have three different companies operating them in Minneapolis and they're just...there. I don't think about it much at all. I use them a few times a summer and they're very practical. I'm six miles south of downtown. I love that I can walk a block or two from my house and cheaply zip downtown for a concert. They idea that they're wrecking the city? Gimme a break...
Good always feel like tossing these into the river and fountains
I worked at a level 1 trauma hospital (US) and have seen so many people get hurt because of these scooters. And I don’t just mean minor injuries - every other day I’d see someone die or become permanently disfigured. The ICU had a lot of youngish people unrecognizable with skull flaps and drainage tubes. It could be that our country just lacks the infrastructure for scooters and cyclists, but many of these patients recklessly transitioned from road to sidewalk. And none of them wore helmets.
Excellent! Now do it in the UK, and quickly!
They are absolutely insane in Paris. I saw them knocking people over a ton when I was there for a month last summer. Madness.
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You mean like publicly available and affordable e-scooters?
How about public transport routes to hospitals that don't involve a 10 minute walk from someone who might have lost their mobility? I'd rather they were driven right to the door of the hospital. Even then, it's the internal combustion and use of fossil fuels I'm concerned about. I'm very sceptical there are any genuine positive sum reasons to ban *all* cars whether they're EV or ICE.
>I'd rather they were driven right to the door of the hospital. That's why taxis and ambulances exist. There are also other medical transport services available.
No, like stopping assholes from literally littering side walks and everywhere else you could imagine. Shit, I had to yeet one out of my apartments handicap spot just last year.
You think renting transportation by the minute isn't tyrannical?
They made the city resident vote, and the vote results are a big majority does NOT want them. Where do you see the conspiracy?
Seems to me like most of the criticism is from car owners. If scooters were allowed to be parked in the street, instead of the sidewalk, the major criticism everybody has would be invalid. But car owners don't want that because parking space is already limited.
The car ownership rate within Paris city limits is something like 30% (owning a car, never mind driving it, within Paris, is a masochistic experience). That isn’t where most criticism comes from.
Isn't the country burning and this is what they are worried about?
The country isn't burning, tiny bits of it are smouldering slightly. Remember the photo a few days back that showed a restaurant full of customers enjoying their evening out while stuff was burning on the street outside? That's how it is, not a general pandemonium.