4 ms·

I live in a city doing a scooter pilot with a few companies including Bird. My observation has been that many, many scooter riders are: * Breaking traffic laws

by Rapzid 8y ago

I live in a city doing a scooter pilot with a few companies including Bird. My observation has been that many, many scooter riders are: * Breaking traffic laws(blowing through stop signs) * Riding in the streets and through intersections without paying attention to traffic * Riding quickly through parking lots without paying attention to traffic * Riding unsafely on sidewalks * Riding without helmets Generally, being oblivious to any safety responsibility. I witnessed a guy the other day riding down the sidewalk with one of those long skinny beer packs across the deck flopping around and sliding off with something else in his arms. It's super stressful operating a vehicle around the hot spots with this erratic, illegal behavior going on however I have yet to witness a vehicle plow them.

Rebelgecko 8y ago
I definitely see where you're coming from, but on the other hand you could make the exact same arguments about cyclists. The rates vary a bit (anecdotally, scooter riders are way less likely to wear helmets but more likely to stop at stop signs). I think the booming population of scooters is just increasing the number of opportunities to see the problems that exist for modes of transportation that split the difference between pedestrians and cars.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  And how many motorists do you see break the law on any given day? Many scooter-riders (and cyclists) do too, but I am less worried about them killing me, they'll just kill themselves (which has a social cost, admittedly, but doesn't seem to justify the general torches-and-pitchforks that the scooters evoke mysteriously).
- Rapzid 8y ago
  Cyclist in my area(not SF, LA, NY, etc) tend to be much more safety conscious. They typically have high visibility wear and lights in the evening, and ride in the lanes and obey traffic laws and signage(traffic lights, stop signs, etc). As well, a scooter will casually accelerate very quickly up to 15mph which is not a casual cycling speed for most people; it's a beginner training speed and rarely seen in parking lots and other space constrained locations. Lane splitting is not legal in my state, and scooters seem to be much more likely to zip between cars and between cars and curbs including through lights and stop signs. Typically, surprisingly, cyclists will actually full stop behind cars at lights and not go around them to the front. I would contest, but be open to, it being a sampling biases. I would posit the scooter riders and my area are a much higher accident liability than cyclists in large part due to their own actions. Cycling is reasonably prevalent in the area I live at in my city. I think I can sum it all up with one phrase: "Carte Blanche"
watwut 8y ago
I understand complain about unsafe riding on the street, but those stop signs really really don't have safety importance for bicycles and scooters. It also seems to me that Americans would be happier if every single sport activity had helmet. It is treated as something between magical make me safe item and moral requirement.
- askafriend 8y ago
  Honestly wearing a helmet is about one of the highest ROI and lowest effort things to do. It's absolutely the smart move to wear a helmet. The statistics tell the story, and your brain is the number 1 thing you should worry about protecting. Just look at the long term impacts that even light concussions have in a sport like Football. You can seriously screw your life up in something like a scooter accident when you go down hard head-first onto concrete.
  - watwut 8y ago
    1.) You dont get a lot of head hits in bicycle the way you get them in Football. 2.) The impact of helmets is smaller then people make it to be. 3.) You are making up cycling sound much more dangerous that it actually is, with or without helmet. 4.) And yes, helmets are annoyance. Helmet laws make people cycle less, that is fact too. Especially when it comes to trips to work, store or while running errands. If I have to look at least reasonable while dealing with bureaucracies and people, I can take bike but not helment (or need to comb hair and what not).
    - askafriend 8y ago
      I'd like to see actual data for #2. For #3, it's not that cycling is dangerous. It's that roads and car culture are dangerous. No activity exists in a vacuum. And as for #1, the reason you wear a helmet is because the one time that you do fall headfirst onto concrete, the damage is life-long. It's not the frequency that you're protecting against, it's the inevitability of a fall and the potential lasting consequences. And finally, I'd like to add that I'm speaking from a San Francisco point of view.
- 8y ago

by Rapzid 8y ago

Rebelgecko 8y ago

I definitely see where you're coming from, but on the other hand you could make the exact same arguments about cyclists. The rates vary a bit (anecdotally, scooter riders are way less likely to wear helmets but more likely to stop at stop signs). I think the booming population of scooters is just increasing the number of opportunities to see the problems that exist for modes of transportation that split the difference between pedestrians and cars.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
And how many motorists do you see break the law on any given day? Many scooter-riders (and cyclists) do too, but I am less worried about them killing me, they'll just kill themselves (which has a social cost, admittedly, but doesn't seem to justify the general torches-and-pitchforks that the scooters evoke mysteriously).
Rapzid 8y ago
Cyclist in my area(not SF, LA, NY, etc) tend to be much more safety conscious. They typically have high visibility wear and lights in the evening, and ride in the lanes and obey traffic laws and signage(traffic lights, stop signs, etc). As well, a scooter will casually accelerate very quickly up to 15mph which is not a casual cycling speed for most people; it's a beginner training speed and rarely seen in parking lots and other space constrained locations. Lane splitting is not legal in my state, and scooters seem to be much more likely to zip between cars and between cars and curbs including through lights and stop signs. Typically, surprisingly, cyclists will actually full stop behind cars at lights and not go around them to the front. I would contest, but be open to, it being a sampling biases. I would posit the scooter riders and my area are a much higher accident liability than cyclists in large part due to their own actions. Cycling is reasonably prevalent in the area I live at in my city. I think I can sum it all up with one phrase: "Carte Blanche"

watwut 8y ago

I understand complain about unsafe riding on the street, but those stop signs really really don't have safety importance for bicycles and scooters. It also seems to me that Americans would be happier if every single sport activity had helmet. It is treated as something between magical make me safe item and moral requirement.

askafriend 8y ago
Honestly wearing a helmet is about one of the highest ROI and lowest effort things to do. It's absolutely the smart move to wear a helmet. The statistics tell the story, and your brain is the number 1 thing you should worry about protecting. Just look at the long term impacts that even light concussions have in a sport like Football. You can seriously screw your life up in something like a scooter accident when you go down hard head-first onto concrete.
- watwut 8y ago
  1.) You dont get a lot of head hits in bicycle the way you get them in Football. 2.) The impact of helmets is smaller then people make it to be. 3.) You are making up cycling sound much more dangerous that it actually is, with or without helmet. 4.) And yes, helmets are annoyance. Helmet laws make people cycle less, that is fact too. Especially when it comes to trips to work, store or while running errands. If I have to look at least reasonable while dealing with bureaucracies and people, I can take bike but not helment (or need to comb hair and what not).
  - askafriend 8y ago
    I'd like to see actual data for #2. For #3, it's not that cycling is dangerous. It's that roads and car culture are dangerous. No activity exists in a vacuum. And as for #1, the reason you wear a helmet is because the one time that you do fall headfirst onto concrete, the damage is life-long. It's not the frequency that you're protecting against, it's the inevitability of a fall and the potential lasting consequences. And finally, I'd like to add that I'm speaking from a San Francisco point of view.
8y ago