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These scooters and scooter companies seem pretty divisive, especially on HN. I understand they're operating in grey areas, I guess kinda like Uber before them,

These scooters and scooter companies seem pretty divisive, especially on HN. I understand they're operating in grey areas, I guess kinda like Uber before them, but they are causing (I think) positive disruption. I personally love these scooters. I'm living in Australia now where we don't have them. But last month I took a 3 week road trip from LAX to DC and back so I could hit cities I hadn't been to before. And in many of these cities, I used a Bird to get around. These scooters opened up so much more of these cities for me than I could have seen if I just walked every where. I think they provide real value to a city, for tourists to get around, and for citizens for the last mile and to complement other forms of transport. We just need for these scooter companies to be less like Uber and actually work with the cities to come up with reasonable regulations (in particular insisting on all riders wearing helmets)

cortesoft 8y ago
I think the big issue that most people have with them is the large externality of having scooters littered around the sidewalk. In a lot of places in West Los Angeles, you are having to step around them constantly if you walk down the street. People literally just drop them in the middle of the sidewalk, because there is no incentive for them to not do that. This means that everyone who doesn't use the service has to suffer.
- kerng 8y ago
  Maybe some parking areas for cars can be replaced in favor of scooters and bikes in certain places. Its interesting how we accept that cars are allowed to park nearly everywhere in cities. It's just normal - scooter and bikes will be a new normal also. But hopefully not in addition but instead of cars in some areas.
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    Santa Monica has a TON of parking laws. You certainly can NOT just park your car anywhere you want. Pretty much every parking spot available in the city has rules - how long you can park there, how much you have to pay to park there, who is allowed to park there, what permits you need, etc. We have NONE of this for scooters. We need these same rules for scooters that we have for cars.
    - skybrian 8y ago
      Yes, rules, but probably not the same rules. Allocating space for scooter parking should be a lot easier than for cars, so fewer rules should be needed.
      - cortesoft 8y ago
        Sure, but that is kinda beside the point. My point is that we DON'T accept cars just parking everywhere, we decided on rules for where they need to park, and we need to do the same for scooters. Obviously the rules are going to be different because the vehicles are different and are used differently, but the rules will still have the same basic form: you are allowed to park in these areas, for this amount of time, for this much money.
        skybrian 8y ago
        Well, hopefully for free. There isn't usually a charge for using a bike rack. Instead the scooter companies should charge for not leaving the scooter in a proper parking spot.
- maxk42 8y ago
  Especially hurtful to people who have limited mobility and get around with a wheelchair, walker, crutches, or have trouble bending down to move them out of the way. On top of that I've seen them left in bushes, in the street taking up parking space, or blocking doors or gates.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    I don't see what's wrong with them taking up parking space. Considering mean occupancy of cars in America, the street parked scooter is doing just as well in serving one individual as a street parked car. In fact, I'd argue we should remove more parking spots and switch them to scooter spots.
    - maxk42 8y ago
      In Hollywood if you take up a parking space with a scooter instead of turning it sideways so a car can still fit you are a massive dick. Parking is a very limited resource here.
      - scarejunba 8y ago
        Which is why you don’t use it for one person’s car instead of five people’s scooters. Enough subsidies for cars.
      - esotericn 8y ago
        Can't you just like, get out of the car, move it, then park? If it's a shared resource like a Bird scooter then there's no moral quandary about "touching other people's stuff" that would make sense for an actual person's property. The company doesn't care, there's no-one that even can care.
- e40 8y ago
  I don't so much mind them littering the sidewalk as them being ridden on the sidewalk. They are extremely dangerous for pedestrians. Should I step around that dog poop, I might be hit by a scooter coming up from behind me. I have had close a dozen close calls when I was walking in a straight line. I walk 4 miles/day on sidewalks with these things.
  - i_am_nomad 8y ago
    I’ve owned one of them for a couple years, and have stopped riding it because it’s fundamentally dangerous. I felt like on the streets (San Francisco), I was going to get squashed sooner or later. And riding on the Embarcadero (a wide shore-side walkway that’s bicycle friendly), I was sure I was going to eventually hit someone.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Extremely dangerous? Just so I can calibrate my understanding, what are a couple of other things you consider extremely dangerous? For me, extremely dangerous means high risk of death or grievous body harm. Something like 100 micromorts per exposure. I want to ensure I'm not underrating this.
    - e40 8y ago
      I have had 10+ people whiz past me at 20 MPH, within inches of my body. Had I taken a step to the side they were riding, I would have been hit and been pushed to the ground. Had I hit my head, I could have died. People die from head injuries all the time. In the shower, falling down, etc. Yes, I call this extremely dangerous, because death could result. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes. A few years ago a 20 something year old girl was walking in SF and was hit by a bicycle, knocked to the ground and hit her head. She died at the scene. (She was in the crosswalk and the rider was charged with something, I forget.) So, it does happen.
      - scarejunba 8y ago
        So if you had the following reference points: crossing the road normally as you do (A), skydiving (B), BASE jumping (C) where we know that A < B < C (empirically), does this fall below A, above C, or between two of {A, B, C}, and if so, which two?
- L_Rahman 8y ago
  Functionally this is the easiest problem in the world to solve. It's the same solution for scooters and dockless bikeshare. Take two parking spots in each block. Put beacons on the corners or some kind of signaling tape around the whole thing. Only let users drop off rides inside that spot. Bonus points for having non-locking racks to help organize. People get to litter their car on the side of my road, often in the bike lane for free and everyone walks around like it's okay. It's not. Neither are the scooters on the sidewalk. We know how to solve both problems. Parking spots for dockless transit and banning cars from transit and pedestrian rich neighborhoods. [edit] I removed a line saying I was annoyed that people kept complaining the scooter parking situation. Those complaints point out a very real problem with scooter deployments and that we have a solution for it that is difficult to get passed doesn't make the complaint less valid.
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    Right, this is all part of the process, and I am not saying it is insurmountable. When cars first came around, we had no parking laws. Now we do. We need the parking laws for scooters.
    - L_Rahman 8y ago
      This is a very fair response and I completely agree with you. In fact, I would argue that part of the negotiation that cities ought to do with Bird and Lime and others like it is to make any deploy conditional on the passage of and adherence to scooter parking laws.
  - jakevn 8y ago
    People keep bringing up this problem because it's still a problem. If it's so easy to solve, why is it not solved? Cities should simply impound any scooter not properly parked and charge $200 to get it back. Since solving the parking problem is so easy, this will push Bird/Lime into finally solving it.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- foob 8y ago
  Yeah, I think this is a fair assessment. Companies like Citibike and Zipcar provide similar benefits, but they do so by isolating their pickups to designated areas where they presumably have approval to operate. These scooter companies use the sidewalk like they own it, and that's pretty obnoxious if you want to use a sidewalk for walking. The big complaint that most people have isn't that scooters are displacing driving, it's that they're using the sidewalks as free scooter storage and externalizing the cost of that to everyone else.
- jseliger 8y ago
  the large externality of having scooters littered around the sidewalk. You and I have very different definitions of "large." I'd call this "very minor." It also depends on the comparison group. I mean, look at these astounding photos of mammoth, abandoned dockless vehicles: https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture-graveyards-of-unused-dockless-vehicles-in-american-cities.html https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture.... Cities will, over time, reallocate a small amount of the space currently devoted to very large dockless vehicles to small dockless vehicles and thus solve the problem.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  What about all the cars littered on the sides of the street? Don't you have to walk around those too?
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    No? If you tried to park a car on the sidewalk you will get towed. I mean, in Santa Monica if you are 1 minute late past the time on the sign you will get towed. The cars are parked in designated spots on the road, with all sorts of rules about how long and how much you have to pay for the spot. In Santa Monica, pretty much every available parking spot has a meter that means you have to pay to park there, and are limited in how long you can park there. Now, we can have all sorts of public policy debates about how much of a city's public space should be dedicated to parking spots, but at least the public had a say in the policy and at least there IS a policy. We just need rules around where you can park the scooters and for how long, and how much you have to pay to use the public space to park your scooter.
    - SamReidHughes 8y ago
      If the argument for parking is that it's democratically decided, then being able to leave scooters around wherever is also democratically decided. Santa Monica could pass a scooter law whenever it wants to. They don't have a policy on nose-picking or walking without looking where you're going either. The actual basis of your complaint is that you like parking, but you don't like scooters being put wherever.
      - cortesoft 8y ago
        No, my entire point has been that we need laws about where scooters are parked. I think it is a bit unfair to say we have democratically decided to let scooters park everywhere simply by the fact that we haven't yet passed any laws about where they can park; the law is slow to move, and the scooter parking issue is pretty new. Before Bird and Lime, there were not enough scooters around to be a big enough problem where we needed a law. Now we do, but the law is slow to change. In the mean time, it is pretty annoying.
- beambot 8y ago
  Curious thought: Disincentivize bad behavior. Scooter companies know who the last user was, so they could develop techniques to apply "parking violations." Whether that means GPS-enabled (sufficient resolution?) or crowdsourced (next rider taking picture) doesn't really matter. But this is like the automobile equivalent of a parking ticket.
  - stingrae 8y ago
    Skip in SF is sort of doing that. The app makes you take a picture of the scooter in its parking spot when you leave it.
    - masonic 8y ago
      But they don't verify that a neatly parked scooter in a photo is the specific one you used.
  - ravenstine 8y ago
    What incentive would Lime and Bird have to do this? I think that'd have to come about through policy being passed in enough cities.
    - cortesoft 8y ago
      Right, this is what makes it an externality... Lime and Bird don't care about it, because the cost is born by people who are not customers. They have no incentive to fix the problem unless forced to.
      - beambot 8y ago
        I assume they care about it massively, lest cities drop the hammer a la SF. Also: it's a fun exercise to go back in time and look at all the laws sponsored by automotive & oil companies to create today's car culture (case in point: streetcars). I assure you: there was a lot of protectionism & it wasn't always about the consumer.
    - 8y ago
- ravenstine 8y ago
  I feel bad for people in wheelchairs that have to come to a dead stop for these scooters. I live in Santa Monica and regularly see scooters left flat in the middle of the sidewalk. I mean, what the actual fuck? The fact that so many people that use these services lack any respect makes me hesitate to ride the scooters(and thereby join them).
  - asdff 8y ago
    A big problem with these is how unsteady they are. I've seen them topple like cards in barely a gust.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    There are people who dislike these things so they'll kick them over when they see them. It's not usually the users.
KerrickStaley 8y ago
Helmet laws for adults tend to reduce riders' willingness to use these services because they create inconvenience. In my opinion people should have the choice of whether or not to wear a helmet. Personally, I usually wear a helmet, but if I happen to not have mine with me it won't stop me from taking a bike or scooter. Having good situational awareness of surrounding cars, pedestrians, and other road users as well as stationary obstacles ahead of you provides much more safety than a helmet.
- Reedx 8y ago
  Yeah, there are unintended consequences with requiring helmets. Fewer people ride bikes, which means less exercise and more car usage. Affecting health and the environment. Here's a good look at that for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWhMEkMtLy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWhMEkMtLy0
- baroffoos 8y ago
  I have never fallen off my road bike and I ride fairly fast (up to 50km/h) I still wear my helmet because at that speed a fall would be bad but if I was just having a slow ride with some friends to the pub there is really no need for a helmet.
briandear 8y ago
Helmets are important (I always wear one,) however, government ought not force people to wear them. Freedom still should matter. Grown adults should be able to make their own decisions. I support helmet laws for the under 18 crowd, but for grown adults? Too much nanny state for my liking.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bradlys 8y ago
  One reason people might disagree is that you're pushing the externality of your own safety onto others. An example of an externality: those who don't wear helmets and crash are much more likely to have a brain injury (or death). This means that we all have to pay for your care now. In death (lack of taxes) or in financial damage. And in some cases like safety standards, people will also argue for emotional safety as well. Your death or injury could have a severe affect on those surrounding you even if you don't care but that's less measurable. Freedom is complicated when you don't live in a silo.
  - Reedx 8y ago
    Right, but isn't that also the case for people in cars? They get head injuries in car crashes that may have been prevented by wearing a helmet. As for helmet laws, they have unintended consequences, such as fewer people riding bikes. Resulting in more cars/pollution and less exercise, less healthy population.
    - bsder 8y ago
      > Right, but isn't that also the case for people in cars? They get head injuries in car crashes that may have been prevented by wearing a helmet. A car driver has insurance to some level--a bicyclist or scooter user probably doesn't. The issue is that in the US, we don't have universal healthcare which would make this discussion moot.
      - 8y ago
bb2018 8y ago
I could not be more upset that people who have stated progressive goals such as cutting down on fuel and providing cheap public transportation are against these. They are an absolutely great alternative that makes these goals possible without having to completely overhaul city designs. The only externality really seems to be they are parked in random places - but I don't see how that is any different than cars parked on streets which are actually much more disruptive. Now more people can get to work or do errands cheaply without the need for a huge car or spending extra time with consolidated public transporation.
- baroffoos 8y ago
  All road side parking should be removed from cities and replaced with bike/scooter parks. So many problems would be gone instantly including drivers seriously injuring people on a regular basis while opening their doors.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  They are fairly commonly left in ways that make it difficult for pedestrians in wheel chairs/walkers/blind.
  - notable_user 8y ago
    It’d be fairly easy to designate a spot on every block for scooter/bike/etc parking. Much easier and space efficient than creating parking spaces. Here’s an example that Santa Monica is trying: https://www.10news.com/news/santa-monica-creates-parking-spaces-for-rental-scooters-and-bikes https://www.10news.com/news/santa-monica-creates-parking-spa...
  - lazyasciiart 8y ago
    Yes, when I see that I move them. Just like I've spent years moving commercial sidewalk signs. Why is it only now that an environmentally beneficial and actually USEFUL item is causing trouble that the rest of you have started to care about wheelchair users and blind people?
  - rb666 8y ago
superfrank 8y ago
Personally, I love the scooters and bikes these companies provide and I think you make a really good point about them being a positive disruption. It's pretty clear that there is a growing demand for ways to get around other than driving yourself. Lyft and Uber are great for covering distances, but have their issues. In busy metro areas it can often be quicker to walk than it is to drive if you're only going a mile and traffic is bad. On the flip side, in more suburban areas the nearest Uber or Lyft can often be 10+ minutes away. These bikes and scooters fill that "too long to walk, too short to Lyft" gap perfectly as well as being a great for getting from a public transit stop to a destination. I don't think they have all the kinks worked out yet. I often see them left in stupid places and there are safety issues for sure, but I really do think they are a step in the right direction.
- justinator 8y ago
  Privately owning a bike is not cost prohibitive, you know.
  - jyrkesh 8y ago
    It could be from the perspective of storage and maintenance. For me, one of the hardest things about owning a bike is where the hell to put it. I live in a city where I can't lock it up outside overnight or it'll eventually be stolen. And as someone else mentioned, flat tires are a pain, checking/maintaining brakes are a pain...I can afford to have someone else do it, but that's still way more of a hassle than just booping a bike on the sidewalk.
    - justinator 8y ago
      * It could be from the perspective of storage and maintenance. For me, one of the hardest things about owning a bike is where the hell to put it. I live in a city where I can't lock it up outside overnight or it'll eventually be stolen.* Hang it from a hook. And as someone else mentioned, flat tires are a pain, checking/maintaining brakes are a pain...I can afford to have someone else do it, but that's still way more of a hassle than just booping a bike on the sidewalk. Squeeze the tire to see if it's holding air, squeeze the brake lever to see if it's stopping the wheel, then go! Not too difficult. Flat tires aren't too common these days. Wheels can be tubeless these days, even.
i_feel_great 8y ago
Lime has been in Brisbane for a month now, and they are a menace to pedestrians. Whats more, it does not look like it is alleviating the traffic problems whatsoever. I saw one pulled out of the Brisbane River the other day too.
- lucasmullens 8y ago
  How can you tell if it's alleviating traffic problems? I don't think the effect is large enough to tell through a gut check.
- NamTaf 8y ago
  I haven't had too much issue with them as a pedestrian, though I'm baffled as to why they're forbidden from using bike lanes on roads and are therefore forced to use the footpaths. They travel with the same sort of speed as a bike, and the user wears a helmet. Surely the risks are pretty equivalent.
hyperpallium 8y ago
Just BTW, Lime are in Sydney and Brisbane https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(transportation_company) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(transportation_company)
NamTaf 8y ago
As others have said, we have them in Brisbane. Amusingly, they're forbidden from using all roadways including the green bicycle paths on the sides of roads. They must be ridden on the footpath, or on dedicated bikeways that aren't on roads. I don't understand why this is the case. The helmet thing is currently tackled by having a helmet on each scooter. I haven't seen any go missing yet but I've also not ridden one myself, though I both live and work inside the proximity for using them. People I've talked to who've used them have found them fun and convenient. Friends have used them to get to work faster than walking when running late. Others have gone out on the weekend to just sight-see and enjoy the weather, which I think is a positive change vs. sitting inside. I think they're a net positive, but there's some downsides that I think can be addressed. edit: For additional context, we have a bike share system in Brisbane too (called CityCycle) which is tied to our transit card system. I see it getting some use, but it seems like the scooters are far more popular (at least right now). With our CityCycle system, you pay a ongoing membership fee ($5/mo) plus usage fees (after the first 30 minutes), though there's also a day pass ($2/day) rather than ongoing membership. This makes it a bit harder to start using or sporadically use compared to the scooters. Additionally, you have to return them to dedicated rack locations rather than just park them anywhere. Lastly, they're somehow more dorky than a lime-green scooter, given that they have bright yellow plastic and ads on them.
LeonidasXIV 8y ago
> I personally love these scooters. I'm living in Australia now where we don't have them. But last month I took a 3 week road trip from LAX to DC and back so I could hit cities I hadn't been to before. And in many of these cities, I used a Bird to get around. These scooters opened up so much more of these cities for me than I could have seen if I just walked every where. I wanted to like them when I was visiting from Europe to STL but I couldn't: - They require a helmet. I don't have a helmet and I'm not gonna buy one for a 5 day trip. Most people do not wear helmets but if police stops me I can hardly point at other people disobeying the same rule. - They require a drivers license. I last drove a car half a decade ago or so so I tend to use my driver's license at home, especially on trips abroad. - Using the scooters on streets in STL feels a bit scary. I commute to work by bike every day but we have cycle lanes and drivers who are used to seeing cyclists everywhere so it is a rather safe environment.
samstave 8y ago
Just curious, what was your budget for that road trip?

cortesoft 8y ago

I think the big issue that most people have with them is the large externality of having scooters littered around the sidewalk. In a lot of places in West Los Angeles, you are having to step around them constantly if you walk down the street. People literally just drop them in the middle of the sidewalk, because there is no incentive for them to not do that. This means that everyone who doesn't use the service has to suffer.

kerng 8y ago
Maybe some parking areas for cars can be replaced in favor of scooters and bikes in certain places. Its interesting how we accept that cars are allowed to park nearly everywhere in cities. It's just normal - scooter and bikes will be a new normal also. But hopefully not in addition but instead of cars in some areas.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Santa Monica has a TON of parking laws. You certainly can NOT just park your car anywhere you want. Pretty much every parking spot available in the city has rules - how long you can park there, how much you have to pay to park there, who is allowed to park there, what permits you need, etc. We have NONE of this for scooters. We need these same rules for scooters that we have for cars.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Yes, rules, but probably not the same rules. Allocating space for scooter parking should be a lot easier than for cars, so fewer rules should be needed.
    - cortesoft 8y ago
      Sure, but that is kinda beside the point. My point is that we DON'T accept cars just parking everywhere, we decided on rules for where they need to park, and we need to do the same for scooters. Obviously the rules are going to be different because the vehicles are different and are used differently, but the rules will still have the same basic form: you are allowed to park in these areas, for this amount of time, for this much money.
      - skybrian 8y ago
        Well, hopefully for free. There isn't usually a charge for using a bike rack. Instead the scooter companies should charge for not leaving the scooter in a proper parking spot.
maxk42 8y ago
Especially hurtful to people who have limited mobility and get around with a wheelchair, walker, crutches, or have trouble bending down to move them out of the way. On top of that I've seen them left in bushes, in the street taking up parking space, or blocking doors or gates.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  I don't see what's wrong with them taking up parking space. Considering mean occupancy of cars in America, the street parked scooter is doing just as well in serving one individual as a street parked car. In fact, I'd argue we should remove more parking spots and switch them to scooter spots.
  - maxk42 8y ago
    In Hollywood if you take up a parking space with a scooter instead of turning it sideways so a car can still fit you are a massive dick. Parking is a very limited resource here.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      Which is why you don’t use it for one person’s car instead of five people’s scooters. Enough subsidies for cars.
    - esotericn 8y ago
      Can't you just like, get out of the car, move it, then park? If it's a shared resource like a Bird scooter then there's no moral quandary about "touching other people's stuff" that would make sense for an actual person's property. The company doesn't care, there's no-one that even can care.
e40 8y ago
I don't so much mind them littering the sidewalk as them being ridden on the sidewalk. They are extremely dangerous for pedestrians. Should I step around that dog poop, I might be hit by a scooter coming up from behind me. I have had close a dozen close calls when I was walking in a straight line. I walk 4 miles/day on sidewalks with these things.
- i_am_nomad 8y ago
  I’ve owned one of them for a couple years, and have stopped riding it because it’s fundamentally dangerous. I felt like on the streets (San Francisco), I was going to get squashed sooner or later. And riding on the Embarcadero (a wide shore-side walkway that’s bicycle friendly), I was sure I was going to eventually hit someone.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Extremely dangerous? Just so I can calibrate my understanding, what are a couple of other things you consider extremely dangerous? For me, extremely dangerous means high risk of death or grievous body harm. Something like 100 micromorts per exposure. I want to ensure I'm not underrating this.
  - e40 8y ago
    I have had 10+ people whiz past me at 20 MPH, within inches of my body. Had I taken a step to the side they were riding, I would have been hit and been pushed to the ground. Had I hit my head, I could have died. People die from head injuries all the time. In the shower, falling down, etc. Yes, I call this extremely dangerous, because death could result. Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes. A few years ago a 20 something year old girl was walking in SF and was hit by a bicycle, knocked to the ground and hit her head. She died at the scene. (She was in the crosswalk and the rider was charged with something, I forget.) So, it does happen.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      So if you had the following reference points: crossing the road normally as you do (A), skydiving (B), BASE jumping (C) where we know that A < B < C (empirically), does this fall below A, above C, or between two of {A, B, C}, and if so, which two?
L_Rahman 8y ago
Functionally this is the easiest problem in the world to solve. It's the same solution for scooters and dockless bikeshare. Take two parking spots in each block. Put beacons on the corners or some kind of signaling tape around the whole thing. Only let users drop off rides inside that spot. Bonus points for having non-locking racks to help organize. People get to litter their car on the side of my road, often in the bike lane for free and everyone walks around like it's okay. It's not. Neither are the scooters on the sidewalk. We know how to solve both problems. Parking spots for dockless transit and banning cars from transit and pedestrian rich neighborhoods. [edit] I removed a line saying I was annoyed that people kept complaining the scooter parking situation. Those complaints point out a very real problem with scooter deployments and that we have a solution for it that is difficult to get passed doesn't make the complaint less valid.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  Right, this is all part of the process, and I am not saying it is insurmountable. When cars first came around, we had no parking laws. Now we do. We need the parking laws for scooters.
  - L_Rahman 8y ago
    This is a very fair response and I completely agree with you. In fact, I would argue that part of the negotiation that cities ought to do with Bird and Lime and others like it is to make any deploy conditional on the passage of and adherence to scooter parking laws.
- jakevn 8y ago
  People keep bringing up this problem because it's still a problem. If it's so easy to solve, why is it not solved? Cities should simply impound any scooter not properly parked and charge $200 to get it back. Since solving the parking problem is so easy, this will push Bird/Lime into finally solving it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
foob 8y ago
Yeah, I think this is a fair assessment. Companies like Citibike and Zipcar provide similar benefits, but they do so by isolating their pickups to designated areas where they presumably have approval to operate. These scooter companies use the sidewalk like they own it, and that's pretty obnoxious if you want to use a sidewalk for walking. The big complaint that most people have isn't that scooters are displacing driving, it's that they're using the sidewalks as free scooter storage and externalizing the cost of that to everyone else.
jseliger 8y ago
the large externality of having scooters littered around the sidewalk. You and I have very different definitions of "large." I'd call this "very minor." It also depends on the comparison group. I mean, look at these astounding photos of mammoth, abandoned dockless vehicles: https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture-graveyards-of-unused-dockless-vehicles-in-american-cities.html https://slate.com/business/2018/04/astounding-photos-capture.... Cities will, over time, reallocate a small amount of the space currently devoted to very large dockless vehicles to small dockless vehicles and thus solve the problem.
SamReidHughes 8y ago
What about all the cars littered on the sides of the street? Don't you have to walk around those too?
- cortesoft 8y ago
  No? If you tried to park a car on the sidewalk you will get towed. I mean, in Santa Monica if you are 1 minute late past the time on the sign you will get towed. The cars are parked in designated spots on the road, with all sorts of rules about how long and how much you have to pay for the spot. In Santa Monica, pretty much every available parking spot has a meter that means you have to pay to park there, and are limited in how long you can park there. Now, we can have all sorts of public policy debates about how much of a city's public space should be dedicated to parking spots, but at least the public had a say in the policy and at least there IS a policy. We just need rules around where you can park the scooters and for how long, and how much you have to pay to use the public space to park your scooter.
  - SamReidHughes 8y ago
    If the argument for parking is that it's democratically decided, then being able to leave scooters around wherever is also democratically decided. Santa Monica could pass a scooter law whenever it wants to. They don't have a policy on nose-picking or walking without looking where you're going either. The actual basis of your complaint is that you like parking, but you don't like scooters being put wherever.
    - cortesoft 8y ago
      No, my entire point has been that we need laws about where scooters are parked. I think it is a bit unfair to say we have democratically decided to let scooters park everywhere simply by the fact that we haven't yet passed any laws about where they can park; the law is slow to move, and the scooter parking issue is pretty new. Before Bird and Lime, there were not enough scooters around to be a big enough problem where we needed a law. Now we do, but the law is slow to change. In the mean time, it is pretty annoying.
beambot 8y ago
Curious thought: Disincentivize bad behavior. Scooter companies know who the last user was, so they could develop techniques to apply "parking violations." Whether that means GPS-enabled (sufficient resolution?) or crowdsourced (next rider taking picture) doesn't really matter. But this is like the automobile equivalent of a parking ticket.
- stingrae 8y ago
  Skip in SF is sort of doing that. The app makes you take a picture of the scooter in its parking spot when you leave it.
  - masonic 8y ago
    But they don't verify that a neatly parked scooter in a photo is the specific one you used.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  What incentive would Lime and Bird have to do this? I think that'd have to come about through policy being passed in enough cities.
  - cortesoft 8y ago
    Right, this is what makes it an externality... Lime and Bird don't care about it, because the cost is born by people who are not customers. They have no incentive to fix the problem unless forced to.
    - beambot 8y ago
      I assume they care about it massively, lest cities drop the hammer a la SF. Also: it's a fun exercise to go back in time and look at all the laws sponsored by automotive & oil companies to create today's car culture (case in point: streetcars). I assure you: there was a lot of protectionism & it wasn't always about the consumer.
  - 8y ago
ravenstine 8y ago
I feel bad for people in wheelchairs that have to come to a dead stop for these scooters. I live in Santa Monica and regularly see scooters left flat in the middle of the sidewalk. I mean, what the actual fuck? The fact that so many people that use these services lack any respect makes me hesitate to ride the scooters(and thereby join them).
- asdff 8y ago
  A big problem with these is how unsteady they are. I've seen them topple like cards in barely a gust.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  There are people who dislike these things so they'll kick them over when they see them. It's not usually the users.

KerrickStaley 8y ago

Helmet laws for adults tend to reduce riders' willingness to use these services because they create inconvenience. In my opinion people should have the choice of whether or not to wear a helmet. Personally, I usually wear a helmet, but if I happen to not have mine with me it won't stop me from taking a bike or scooter. Having good situational awareness of surrounding cars, pedestrians, and other road users as well as stationary obstacles ahead of you provides much more safety than a helmet.

Reedx 8y ago
Yeah, there are unintended consequences with requiring helmets. Fewer people ride bikes, which means less exercise and more car usage. Affecting health and the environment. Here's a good look at that for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWhMEkMtLy0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWhMEkMtLy0
baroffoos 8y ago
I have never fallen off my road bike and I ride fairly fast (up to 50km/h) I still wear my helmet because at that speed a fall would be bad but if I was just having a slow ride with some friends to the pub there is really no need for a helmet.

briandear 8y ago

Helmets are important (I always wear one,) however, government ought not force people to wear them. Freedom still should matter. Grown adults should be able to make their own decisions. I support helmet laws for the under 18 crowd, but for grown adults? Too much nanny state for my liking.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bradlys 8y ago
One reason people might disagree is that you're pushing the externality of your own safety onto others. An example of an externality: those who don't wear helmets and crash are much more likely to have a brain injury (or death). This means that we all have to pay for your care now. In death (lack of taxes) or in financial damage. And in some cases like safety standards, people will also argue for emotional safety as well. Your death or injury could have a severe affect on those surrounding you even if you don't care but that's less measurable. Freedom is complicated when you don't live in a silo.
- Reedx 8y ago
  Right, but isn't that also the case for people in cars? They get head injuries in car crashes that may have been prevented by wearing a helmet. As for helmet laws, they have unintended consequences, such as fewer people riding bikes. Resulting in more cars/pollution and less exercise, less healthy population.
  - bsder 8y ago
    > Right, but isn't that also the case for people in cars? They get head injuries in car crashes that may have been prevented by wearing a helmet. A car driver has insurance to some level--a bicyclist or scooter user probably doesn't. The issue is that in the US, we don't have universal healthcare which would make this discussion moot.
    - 8y ago

bb2018 8y ago

I could not be more upset that people who have stated progressive goals such as cutting down on fuel and providing cheap public transportation are against these. They are an absolutely great alternative that makes these goals possible without having to completely overhaul city designs. The only externality really seems to be they are parked in random places - but I don't see how that is any different than cars parked on streets which are actually much more disruptive. Now more people can get to work or do errands cheaply without the need for a huge car or spending extra time with consolidated public transporation.

baroffoos 8y ago
All road side parking should be removed from cities and replaced with bike/scooter parks. So many problems would be gone instantly including drivers seriously injuring people on a regular basis while opening their doors.
kasey_junk 8y ago
They are fairly commonly left in ways that make it difficult for pedestrians in wheel chairs/walkers/blind.
- notable_user 8y ago
  It’d be fairly easy to designate a spot on every block for scooter/bike/etc parking. Much easier and space efficient than creating parking spaces. Here’s an example that Santa Monica is trying: https://www.10news.com/news/santa-monica-creates-parking-spaces-for-rental-scooters-and-bikes https://www.10news.com/news/santa-monica-creates-parking-spa...
- lazyasciiart 8y ago
  Yes, when I see that I move them. Just like I've spent years moving commercial sidewalk signs. Why is it only now that an environmentally beneficial and actually USEFUL item is causing trouble that the rest of you have started to care about wheelchair users and blind people?
- rb666 8y ago

superfrank 8y ago

Personally, I love the scooters and bikes these companies provide and I think you make a really good point about them being a positive disruption. It's pretty clear that there is a growing demand for ways to get around other than driving yourself. Lyft and Uber are great for covering distances, but have their issues. In busy metro areas it can often be quicker to walk than it is to drive if you're only going a mile and traffic is bad. On the flip side, in more suburban areas the nearest Uber or Lyft can often be 10+ minutes away. These bikes and scooters fill that "too long to walk, too short to Lyft" gap perfectly as well as being a great for getting from a public transit stop to a destination. I don't think they have all the kinks worked out yet. I often see them left in stupid places and there are safety issues for sure, but I really do think they are a step in the right direction.

justinator 8y ago
Privately owning a bike is not cost prohibitive, you know.
- jyrkesh 8y ago
  It could be from the perspective of storage and maintenance. For me, one of the hardest things about owning a bike is where the hell to put it. I live in a city where I can't lock it up outside overnight or it'll eventually be stolen. And as someone else mentioned, flat tires are a pain, checking/maintaining brakes are a pain...I can afford to have someone else do it, but that's still way more of a hassle than just booping a bike on the sidewalk.
  - justinator 8y ago
    * It could be from the perspective of storage and maintenance. For me, one of the hardest things about owning a bike is where the hell to put it. I live in a city where I can't lock it up outside overnight or it'll eventually be stolen.* Hang it from a hook. And as someone else mentioned, flat tires are a pain, checking/maintaining brakes are a pain...I can afford to have someone else do it, but that's still way more of a hassle than just booping a bike on the sidewalk. Squeeze the tire to see if it's holding air, squeeze the brake lever to see if it's stopping the wheel, then go! Not too difficult. Flat tires aren't too common these days. Wheels can be tubeless these days, even.

i_feel_great 8y ago

Lime has been in Brisbane for a month now, and they are a menace to pedestrians. Whats more, it does not look like it is alleviating the traffic problems whatsoever. I saw one pulled out of the Brisbane River the other day too.

lucasmullens 8y ago
How can you tell if it's alleviating traffic problems? I don't think the effect is large enough to tell through a gut check.
NamTaf 8y ago
I haven't had too much issue with them as a pedestrian, though I'm baffled as to why they're forbidden from using bike lanes on roads and are therefore forced to use the footpaths. They travel with the same sort of speed as a bike, and the user wears a helmet. Surely the risks are pretty equivalent.

hyperpallium 8y ago

Just BTW, Lime are in Sydney and Brisbane https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(transportation_company) https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(transportation_company)

NamTaf 8y ago

As others have said, we have them in Brisbane. Amusingly, they're forbidden from using all roadways including the green bicycle paths on the sides of roads. They must be ridden on the footpath, or on dedicated bikeways that aren't on roads. I don't understand why this is the case. The helmet thing is currently tackled by having a helmet on each scooter. I haven't seen any go missing yet but I've also not ridden one myself, though I both live and work inside the proximity for using them. People I've talked to who've used them have found them fun and convenient. Friends have used them to get to work faster than walking when running late. Others have gone out on the weekend to just sight-see and enjoy the weather, which I think is a positive change vs. sitting inside. I think they're a net positive, but there's some downsides that I think can be addressed. edit: For additional context, we have a bike share system in Brisbane too (called CityCycle) which is tied to our transit card system. I see it getting some use, but it seems like the scooters are far more popular (at least right now). With our CityCycle system, you pay a ongoing membership fee ($5/mo) plus usage fees (after the first 30 minutes), though there's also a day pass ($2/day) rather than ongoing membership. This makes it a bit harder to start using or sporadically use compared to the scooters. Additionally, you have to return them to dedicated rack locations rather than just park them anywhere. Lastly, they're somehow more dorky than a lime-green scooter, given that they have bright yellow plastic and ads on them.

LeonidasXIV 8y ago

> I personally love these scooters. I'm living in Australia now where we don't have them. But last month I took a 3 week road trip from LAX to DC and back so I could hit cities I hadn't been to before. And in many of these cities, I used a Bird to get around. These scooters opened up so much more of these cities for me than I could have seen if I just walked every where. I wanted to like them when I was visiting from Europe to STL but I couldn't: - They require a helmet. I don't have a helmet and I'm not gonna buy one for a 5 day trip. Most people do not wear helmets but if police stops me I can hardly point at other people disobeying the same rule. - They require a drivers license. I last drove a car half a decade ago or so so I tend to use my driver's license at home, especially on trips abroad. - Using the scooters on streets in STL feels a bit scary. I commute to work by bike every day but we have cycle lanes and drivers who are used to seeing cyclists everywhere so it is a rather safe environment.

samstave 8y ago

Just curious, what was your budget for that road trip?