This has been a fascinating rapid reaction by the public. I've been both an evangelist for these and a huge critic. I love the tiniest form-factor, and think th

This has been a fascinating rapid reaction by the public. I've been both an evangelist for these and a huge critic. I love the tiniest form-factor, and think the bad parking can be solved by user-incentives. Typical ask-for-forgiveness-later that caused people to blow their tops (possibly due to the still ridiculous looking nature of tiny scooters?). What really soured me is the quality of machines that have been out of on the streets. Anecdata, but in 12 total rides for me, I've had a scooter that had 1) a hand brake with zero functioning ability 2) a throttle that stuck on as far as the user had pushed it 3) a missing bell. Unluckily, first block on that no brakes scooter was downhill and I dug a heal into the asphalt and eventually did a running dismount to avoid rolling into fast moving perpendicular traffic in Civic Center. Sticky throttle scooter caused an uncontrolled skid. Missing bell was a missing bell. But c'mon, these machines had been used for 10 days and they're having critical safety/maintenance issues. These are the worst possible mistakes, and could easily turn fatal. LimeBike shirked responsibility and their ops manager gave me a "LimeBike Saboteur Theory" over the phone. Bird took hours to disable a a scooter that i was desperately trying to tell them was dangerous to the next rider. Forget sidewalks, these are dangerous vehicles in their current state. You know how Ford bikes feel like tanks relative to a road bike? These scooters also need to be 10x more robust than what's in private use.