6 ms·

Finally, some sober response from the market. there is just no way these can make money at the rate they get destroyed. Im an auto mechanic by trade, and real

Finally, some sober response from the market. there is just no way these can make money at the rate they get destroyed. Im an auto mechanic by trade, and realized these things were a terrible idea when we started having to remove them from cars and trucks. Running over one of these things is somewhere between hitting a land mine and a bicycle rack. Ive personally had to cut at least 30 of them from various drive shafts, wheel wells, and suspension arms. I have a Mercedes van customer looking at nearly six thousand in damage to everything from the radiator all the way back to the driveshaft knuckle after hitting two of these at highway speed as they fell out of the back of a pickup truck. The real joke is they are looking to file an insurance claim against Bird, as their attorney believes state vehicle law covers the scooters as a motor vehicle similar to a motorcycle.

minhazm 7y ago
I don't see how what you described has anything to do with Bird. It could be any scooter, or any random object that's falling out of a pick up truck. Running over things in general is going to be bad for your vehicle.
- bobobooey 7y ago
  He may be seeing these coming in at a higher rate than other objects. Bird has set up a business of transporting heavy scooters that wasn't there before. I've seen people ride 4 at one time to transport them home to charge
- e40 7y ago
  We don't know if the pickup was being operated by Bird or a subcontractor. My guess is that it was. I see people picking these things up in pickups and vans, and they don't look at all professional, but they look like they work for Bird (or the other companies in the sector).
- save_ferris 7y ago
  It's relevant to Bird because Bird makes these scooters available to use at very low cost. Nobody would leave their own scooter in the street, but people have no problem leaving someone else's scooter wherever it was convenient. People leave them all over the place where I live, and it's been a huge problem. They're constantly being fished out of the rivers, dumpsters, etc.
  - quaquaqua1 7y ago
    It's a fair point, but I personally have been the victim of a piece of scrap metal that flew off a truck and into my windshield. The issue is not precisely with Bird, but that the big dogs who fund these companies can produce giant pieces of wasted material thanks to how US and Chinese monetary policy works
    - cyc115 7y ago
      Curious why China is named
      - umeshunni 7y ago
        There's a lot of cheap money floating around in China as well. This is funding business models like that of Ninebot, who is the manufacturer for a lot of these cheap scooters. Another Chinese company that had a similar business model is Ofo, which essentially went bankrupt a few months ago after raising over $2B in funding for dockless bikesharing.
    - save_ferris 7y ago
      Eh, I don't agree with this. The issue in your case was that someone didn't properly secure a piece of scrap metal to their vehicle. The fact that China demands scrap metal doesn't seem relevant to me given that this sounds like simple incompetence. You wouldn't blame the automaker for a drinking and driving incident that resulted in a death, you'd blame the driver.
  - delinka 7y ago
    Bird isn't responsible for securing the load on a truck. They need to go after the driver of the truck that dropped them - he has liability insurance, or his employer does.
    - btrettel 7y ago
      My experience suggests that Bird won't tell the victim the identity of the guilty party even if they know it. Here's a video of a Bird scooter rider running a red light and almost causing a collision with me, a cyclist: https://drive.google.com/open?id=19Bl1ZhMvxbLliIyNkNe_Aj3QWDbPznzp https://drive.google.com/open?id=19Bl1ZhMvxbLliIyNkNe_Aj3QWD... I contacted Bird and while they did look at the video and seemed sympathetic, I got the impression that nothing was done in response. That's because they refused to tell me even simple things like "The rider was reprimanded". I didn't ask for the rider's identity, just for what was done in response. And I contacted them within an hour of the incident, providing precise time, location, and the video above, so I'm very confident they knew who the rider was. (Sorry for the strong language in the video. Note that I included some time before the incident because I know from experience that some people always seem to suggest that if a cyclist had a bad time on the road it was because they antagonized who gave them a bad time. I hope it's clear that I had no contact with this guy before the video.)
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 7y ago
  Scooters, including by Bird, have dramatically increased the amount of street obstacles one can run over. It’s absolutely relevant because the entire scooter model is “blanket the city with them” On top of that, because many of the chargers are “contractors”, you get situations like the OP described where random people just throw scooters in their pickup, unsecured, and then they fly away on the highway.
- JetezLeLogin 7y ago
  Is it that hard to see? Bird, at a minimum, is going to have to replace the destroyed scooter, at least if they want to maintain the same capacity to serve that area/market.
jchanimal 7y ago
Just as I suspected, in a game of rock-paper-scissors, scooters beat cars.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
I'm not saying Bird isn't responsible for some damage, but if the scooters fell out of a pickup, I can't see how anyone but the pickup driver is liable in this case. Or do you mean that the pickup was a Bird maintenance vehicle?
- velosol 7y ago
  Typically Bird hunters [1] will go around with a pickup truck to gather a bunch of scooters to charge them. I've seen one pickup truck that appeared to be company owned rather than a bird hunter, but it seemed to have a decent system to secure the scooters and had many more than I'd ever seen a hunter get. In any case, yes, drivers are responsible for securing loads, but in a lawsuit you go after the deepest pockets if you think you might be able to get payment. It would be an interesting argument that Bird is liable as the hunter is at least an independent contractor for Bird while picking up & transporting the scooters for charging. [1]: Apparently this is the term for those who pull the scooters in and charge them and then redeploy them after the fact for a kickback from Bird.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    Yeah, if this was someone getting paid by Bird in any capacity, then I can see them being liable. I was imagining a user tossing a couple of nearby scooters in their truck so they'd have them at their destination.
    - randomsearch 7y ago
      If you introduce a new technology that creates all sorts of negative side effects, why are you not to blame? Bring a whole load of scooters into public spaces without ensuring they are properly stored, and professionally collected, is irresponsible and should be illegal. The pavement and roads belong to people, not to corporations.
      - dcosson 7y ago
        The pavement and roads belong to cars. It's a joke to say anything else. If a scooter can get hit by a car and mess up the car, we've gotta do something about this nuissance! If a scooter takes up 2 sq ft of space on a curb in between rides, they're ruining our streets! Capitalism run amok! But the entire row of cars parked for free a couple feet away? That's great. Not to mention, tens of thousands of lives lost every year? All good, nothing wrong with that. It's also got absolutely nothing to do with people vs corporations, using that dichotomy here is absurd. Car makers spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year advertising to people to get them to buy more, bigger, more expensive cars. Not to mention, cars are even often leased or rented. I don't see why the business model of rental vs one-time purchase matters, but even if it does matter to you for some reason, cars and scooters are both rented!

minhazm 7y ago

I don't see how what you described has anything to do with Bird. It could be any scooter, or any random object that's falling out of a pick up truck. Running over things in general is going to be bad for your vehicle.

bobobooey 7y ago
He may be seeing these coming in at a higher rate than other objects. Bird has set up a business of transporting heavy scooters that wasn't there before. I've seen people ride 4 at one time to transport them home to charge
e40 7y ago
We don't know if the pickup was being operated by Bird or a subcontractor. My guess is that it was. I see people picking these things up in pickups and vans, and they don't look at all professional, but they look like they work for Bird (or the other companies in the sector).
save_ferris 7y ago
It's relevant to Bird because Bird makes these scooters available to use at very low cost. Nobody would leave their own scooter in the street, but people have no problem leaving someone else's scooter wherever it was convenient. People leave them all over the place where I live, and it's been a huge problem. They're constantly being fished out of the rivers, dumpsters, etc.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  It's a fair point, but I personally have been the victim of a piece of scrap metal that flew off a truck and into my windshield. The issue is not precisely with Bird, but that the big dogs who fund these companies can produce giant pieces of wasted material thanks to how US and Chinese monetary policy works
  - cyc115 7y ago
    Curious why China is named
    - umeshunni 7y ago
      There's a lot of cheap money floating around in China as well. This is funding business models like that of Ninebot, who is the manufacturer for a lot of these cheap scooters. Another Chinese company that had a similar business model is Ofo, which essentially went bankrupt a few months ago after raising over $2B in funding for dockless bikesharing.
  - save_ferris 7y ago
    Eh, I don't agree with this. The issue in your case was that someone didn't properly secure a piece of scrap metal to their vehicle. The fact that China demands scrap metal doesn't seem relevant to me given that this sounds like simple incompetence. You wouldn't blame the automaker for a drinking and driving incident that resulted in a death, you'd blame the driver.
- delinka 7y ago
  Bird isn't responsible for securing the load on a truck. They need to go after the driver of the truck that dropped them - he has liability insurance, or his employer does.
  - btrettel 7y ago
    My experience suggests that Bird won't tell the victim the identity of the guilty party even if they know it. Here's a video of a Bird scooter rider running a red light and almost causing a collision with me, a cyclist: https://drive.google.com/open?id=19Bl1ZhMvxbLliIyNkNe_Aj3QWDbPznzp https://drive.google.com/open?id=19Bl1ZhMvxbLliIyNkNe_Aj3QWD... I contacted Bird and while they did look at the video and seemed sympathetic, I got the impression that nothing was done in response. That's because they refused to tell me even simple things like "The rider was reprimanded". I didn't ask for the rider's identity, just for what was done in response. And I contacted them within an hour of the incident, providing precise time, location, and the video above, so I'm very confident they knew who the rider was. (Sorry for the strong language in the video. Note that I included some time before the incident because I know from experience that some people always seem to suggest that if a cyclist had a bad time on the road it was because they antagonized who gave them a bad time. I hope it's clear that I had no contact with this guy before the video.)
eeeeeeeeeeeee 7y ago
Scooters, including by Bird, have dramatically increased the amount of street obstacles one can run over. It’s absolutely relevant because the entire scooter model is “blanket the city with them” On top of that, because many of the chargers are “contractors”, you get situations like the OP described where random people just throw scooters in their pickup, unsecured, and then they fly away on the highway.
JetezLeLogin 7y ago
Is it that hard to see? Bird, at a minimum, is going to have to replace the destroyed scooter, at least if they want to maintain the same capacity to serve that area/market.

jchanimal 7y ago

Just as I suspected, in a game of rock-paper-scissors, scooters beat cars.

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

I'm not saying Bird isn't responsible for some damage, but if the scooters fell out of a pickup, I can't see how anyone but the pickup driver is liable in this case. Or do you mean that the pickup was a Bird maintenance vehicle?

velosol 7y ago
Typically Bird hunters [1] will go around with a pickup truck to gather a bunch of scooters to charge them. I've seen one pickup truck that appeared to be company owned rather than a bird hunter, but it seemed to have a decent system to secure the scooters and had many more than I'd ever seen a hunter get. In any case, yes, drivers are responsible for securing loads, but in a lawsuit you go after the deepest pockets if you think you might be able to get payment. It would be an interesting argument that Bird is liable as the hunter is at least an independent contractor for Bird while picking up & transporting the scooters for charging. [1]: Apparently this is the term for those who pull the scooters in and charge them and then redeploy them after the fact for a kickback from Bird.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  Yeah, if this was someone getting paid by Bird in any capacity, then I can see them being liable. I was imagining a user tossing a couple of nearby scooters in their truck so they'd have them at their destination.
  - randomsearch 7y ago
    If you introduce a new technology that creates all sorts of negative side effects, why are you not to blame? Bring a whole load of scooters into public spaces without ensuring they are properly stored, and professionally collected, is irresponsible and should be illegal. The pavement and roads belong to people, not to corporations.
    - dcosson 7y ago
      The pavement and roads belong to cars. It's a joke to say anything else. If a scooter can get hit by a car and mess up the car, we've gotta do something about this nuissance! If a scooter takes up 2 sq ft of space on a curb in between rides, they're ruining our streets! Capitalism run amok! But the entire row of cars parked for free a couple feet away? That's great. Not to mention, tens of thousands of lives lost every year? All good, nothing wrong with that. It's also got absolutely nothing to do with people vs corporations, using that dichotomy here is absurd. Car makers spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year advertising to people to get them to buy more, bigger, more expensive cars. Not to mention, cars are even often leased or rented. I don't see why the business model of rental vs one-time purchase matters, but even if it does matter to you for some reason, cars and scooters are both rented!