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I have to say I think the impact of scooters on global warming will be nil if not negative. Those little stand-up electric scooters mostly substitute for walki

I have to say I think the impact of scooters on global warming will be nil if not negative. Those little stand-up electric scooters mostly substitute for walking, not driving. And in that sense they are worse for global warming because they actually use electricity, in many places generated by coal. And consider the warming impact of making the things. Metal forging, paint, tires, batteries, electronics.

zhoujianfu 8y ago
I think you may be underestimating how many car rides they are removing. They’re great to not deal with parking and traffic, and they’re not taking people away from walking/riding bikes. I scraped bird vs bike share data in Santa Monica for a while and bird did seven times as many rides as the bike share with the same number of devices in the same area (and the bike share was doing roughly the same amount of rides as before bird showed up).
Reedx 8y ago
Maybe, I think it depends on how durable they are. And how much they help with the last mile problem. Consider the cases where someone has the option to take a bus or train, but there's a mile gap on both sides of their commute (or even just one side). So instead they drive the whole distance. If they can hop off the bus/train onto a scooter to close that gap, it can tip the scales to public transit vs taking a car.
maherbeg 8y ago
https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimodality-an-analysis-of-early-jump-users-4a35d647b7e6 https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimo... This is a great early analysis on the roll out of jump bike shares on the uber platform. During business hours / commuting hours, uber usage dropped by 15% in favor of jump bicycle shares. Many of the trips seem to replace commutes within the city, and this is while the number of bikes is limited. If the number of bikes explodes, and they can politically shift the landscape to enable safer biking/scootering etc., then that can make a huge dent in denser cities in America.
bradknowles 8y ago
Agreed, scooters (and skateboards) replace walking, not biking or driving. IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. The old method of drug dealers giving away the “first hit for free” seems to be very apropos here. If the scooter companies were required to provide health and liability insurance for every rider, and get a hefty fine every time one of their riders was seen using the sidewalk and/or not wearing a helmet, at least those costs would not be externalized on society. The original Segway device had large wheels that were set horizontally, and incorporated software and hardware to make them as stable as possible. We’ve thrown out all of those advantages in the name of chasing a “cheaper” device. Disclaimer: I am currently recovering from my own accident from riding a scooter, and so I may be a bit biased. Or maybe That gives me a unique insight that many others in this discussion do not. You decide.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. That's...not the legal sense of “attractive nuisance”, which refers to an object on land likely to attract children which makes the landowner legally responsible for injuries by the object to trespassing children so attracted in circumstances in which they otherwise would not be, provided the children are unable to understand the hazard posed. At best, you are referring to a very loose analogy to the legal sense of the term. > Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. I understand the intuitive attractiveness of this, but is there any empirical evidence for it?

zhoujianfu 8y ago

I think you may be underestimating how many car rides they are removing. They’re great to not deal with parking and traffic, and they’re not taking people away from walking/riding bikes. I scraped bird vs bike share data in Santa Monica for a while and bird did seven times as many rides as the bike share with the same number of devices in the same area (and the bike share was doing roughly the same amount of rides as before bird showed up).

Reedx 8y ago

Maybe, I think it depends on how durable they are. And how much they help with the last mile problem. Consider the cases where someone has the option to take a bus or train, but there's a mile gap on both sides of their commute (or even just one side). So instead they drive the whole distance. If they can hop off the bus/train onto a scooter to close that gap, it can tip the scales to public transit vs taking a car.

maherbeg 8y ago

https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimodality-an-analysis-of-early-jump-users-4a35d647b7e6 https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/understanding-multimo... This is a great early analysis on the roll out of jump bike shares on the uber platform. During business hours / commuting hours, uber usage dropped by 15% in favor of jump bicycle shares. Many of the trips seem to replace commutes within the city, and this is while the number of bikes is limited. If the number of bikes explodes, and they can politically shift the landscape to enable safer biking/scootering etc., then that can make a huge dent in denser cities in America.

bradknowles 8y ago

Agreed, scooters (and skateboards) replace walking, not biking or driving. IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. The old method of drug dealers giving away the “first hit for free” seems to be very apropos here. If the scooter companies were required to provide health and liability insurance for every rider, and get a hefty fine every time one of their riders was seen using the sidewalk and/or not wearing a helmet, at least those costs would not be externalized on society. The original Segway device had large wheels that were set horizontally, and incorporated software and hardware to make them as stable as possible. We’ve thrown out all of those advantages in the name of chasing a “cheaper” device. Disclaimer: I am currently recovering from my own accident from riding a scooter, and so I may be a bit biased. Or maybe That gives me a unique insight that many others in this discussion do not. You decide.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> IMO, they’re also an Attractive Nuisance, in the legal sense of the term. They encourage people to ride them who are not adequately trained or equipped, by virtue of their stunningly low price and easy availability. That's...not the legal sense of “attractive nuisance”, which refers to an object on land likely to attract children which makes the landowner legally responsible for injuries by the object to trespassing children so attracted in circumstances in which they otherwise would not be, provided the children are unable to understand the hazard posed. At best, you are referring to a very loose analogy to the legal sense of the term. > Then those people are much more likely to hurt themselves or someone else, thus driving up trips to the ER and local healthcare costs. I understand the intuitive attractiveness of this, but is there any empirical evidence for it?