Sort of an empty comparison to the automobile. Similar in the fact that it's being thrown out into the world without a plan, and there's no space for them, and

Sort of an empty comparison to the automobile. Similar in the fact that it's being thrown out into the world without a plan, and there's no space for them, and there's an outcry. Different because they're a lot less deadly. The proliferation of private automobiles is a net negative for the world, so if these scooters displace (i.e. take away space from) cars, they're good. If they displace, hassle or inconvenience pedestrians or cyclists in any way, they're bad. I don't hold out a lot of hope for them to change the world per se. I mean sheeeit, people trying to ride bikes at 15mph (which were the original reason for paving roads, no less) have been fighting for a space that's not filled with 40mph cars or 3mph walkers for years and getting mostly nowhere. To properly integrate scooters you would need basically a two-lane bike lane - one lane for bikes (10-25mph) and one for scooters (less than that, I assume). In a lot of places the automotive demographic has such a stranglehold on the polity, we can't even get a one-lane bike lane. The only way it would work is if they end up being ragingly popular... like maybe if something like 1/3 to 1/2 of all trips started being done by scooter, that would get the attention of the scooter-lane-planners. Though there is still the problem of "where does the capital come from?" when every municipality is seemingly always broke ever since 2008...