3 ms·

US? Hell, look at what happens when countries start to open up from oppressive governments. Cars show up everywhere. We can never over estimate the desire by an

US? Hell, look at what happens when countries start to open up from oppressive governments. Cars show up everywhere. We can never over estimate the desire by any people to have the freedom to go where they want when they want. The issue with scooters is the same with motorcycles. First and foremost is safety but quickly arriving behind that is weather. Get below 70F and it can be cold even moving only 20 to 30 miles per hour then top it off with rain or worse? The second issue with scooters and motorcycles is that in some regions they are just too easy to make off with so in the case of scooters I could see a government just using the rental system where they are everywhere giving no value in stealing them.

ido 6y ago
I agree people want cars, but people also want single-family detached homes & neither of these scale to big cities (where - corona notwithstanding - increasingly large portions of the population move to). IMO If you want to live in a big city you have to take a hit for the greater good and forgo some things you want. There is no (reasonable) way to have cities like Tokyo, Delhi or Shanghai if each family lives in a detached home & people commute to work daily by private automobile. And this is not even tackling having to alleviate climate change by reducing emissions.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  So stop micromanaging what people build on their property and drive on the road and let the market decide. Get rid of zoning so people and build whatever they want and get rid of registration BS. If someone pays money to register something it shouldn't be the state's concern whether it's a car or a fork lift, moped or a bike, as long as it fits in the lanes and has the right lights they should be able to drive it on any road on which they can keep up with traffic. Nobody wants to do 40 on a moped on the interstate with traffic speeding by. Market solutions for both these problems have been proven to work well.
  - ido 6y ago
    The market does not on itself account for externalities: it can be better for the individual to drive a car even if it's better for all the road's users collectively if as many people as possible took the bus or rode a bike (less congestion). Likewise your personal air pollution doesn't make a perceptible difference but if everyone is driving cleaner vehicles it benefits everyone collectively with cleaner air (this was very noticable when e.g. Delhi required auto-rickshaws to convert to natural gas).

ido 6y ago

I agree people want cars, but people also want single-family detached homes & neither of these scale to big cities (where - corona notwithstanding - increasingly large portions of the population move to). IMO If you want to live in a big city you have to take a hit for the greater good and forgo some things you want. There is no (reasonable) way to have cities like Tokyo, Delhi or Shanghai if each family lives in a detached home & people commute to work daily by private automobile. And this is not even tackling having to alleviate climate change by reducing emissions.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
So stop micromanaging what people build on their property and drive on the road and let the market decide. Get rid of zoning so people and build whatever they want and get rid of registration BS. If someone pays money to register something it shouldn't be the state's concern whether it's a car or a fork lift, moped or a bike, as long as it fits in the lanes and has the right lights they should be able to drive it on any road on which they can keep up with traffic. Nobody wants to do 40 on a moped on the interstate with traffic speeding by. Market solutions for both these problems have been proven to work well.
- ido 6y ago
  The market does not on itself account for externalities: it can be better for the individual to drive a car even if it's better for all the road's users collectively if as many people as possible took the bus or rode a bike (less congestion). Likewise your personal air pollution doesn't make a perceptible difference but if everyone is driving cleaner vehicles it benefits everyone collectively with cleaner air (this was very noticable when e.g. Delhi required auto-rickshaws to convert to natural gas).