6 ms·

Scooters are a blight on some cities. London, UK in particular is a disastrous place for them to the detriment of pedestrians in particular and cyclists and any

• freyfogle 4y ago
  Wait until you find out about cars. Also pretty tough on other road users.
  • easytiger 4y ago
    Really? Don't remember last time i saw a car doing 20-25mph on a 4ft wide pavement. I saw it twice this morning with scooters
    • davidmr 4y ago
      In Berlin, this morning: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/car-driven-into-crowd-berlin https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/car-driven-int...
      • nixass 4y ago
        What does this have to do with the topic of discussion?
    • substation13 4y ago
      Consider why the pavement is only 4ft wide.
      • tomcam 4y ago
        Because London is a 2000 year old city?
        • kitten_mittens_ 4y ago
          Walking on a roads was a thing (and still is in some places). Tokyo, for example.
          • 13of40 4y ago
            The place I'm in right now is supposedly a modern development but the sidewalks are in such disrepair / built over / covered in debris that everyone just walks in the road with the traffic.
        • dijit 4y ago
          It’s been rebuilt many times since then, even discounting the bombing of World War Two which destroyed roughly 2 million homes (of approx 5 million at the time in London). The great fire of London literally reduced the city by so much that practically the entire city was rebuilt; that was only 350y ago (not making the case that you’re wrong about it being old, but 2,000 years is unfortunately wrong) Anyway, urban design is not set in stone. It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Los Angeles as an example of a city that already exists being radically changed, entire blocks of buildings were demolished to make downtown roads so wide.
          • sofixa 4y ago
            > It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Los Angeles as an example of a city that already exists being radically changed, entire blocks of buildings were demolished to make downtown roads so wide I'm not sure giving LA, one of the poster cities for how not to do urban design, as an example, is a great idea. Paris did the same thing, only in a much more measured fashion, in the 1760s under Haussmann and Napoléon III. However destroying parts of a city which is thousands of years old just to increase the size of sidewalks would be to destroy historical monuments for minimal gains. If anything, making most small streets pedestrian and bike only sounds smarter.
            • dijit 4y ago
              Wasn’t making the point that it was good but saying that urban design is locked in to “history” is the most common argument against good cycling infrastructure. (and i was trying to correct the notion that the city of london has not had radical changes in its urban design for 2000 years)
      • easytiger 4y ago
        Some of the roads where i live are over 2000 years old. Was it because society used vehicles to build their civilisation and to move goods and provide services at lower latency? If scooter users stayed on roads i wouldn't have a problem. But the technology lends itself to abuse by people with no knowledge of safe road use.
    • bradhe 4y ago
      20-25mph is an exaggeration at best. Otherwise, check out r/IdiotsInCars.
      • easytiger 4y ago
        > 20-25mph is an exaggeration at best. No. It is not. I even had work colleagues modifying their scooters firmware to do up to or over 30mph
        • oblio 4y ago
          That looks like a recipe for broken bones.
          • mrcartmeneses 4y ago
            You’d think that would stop them but you’ve only got to see Barcelona’s motorcycle injury rates or Bangkok’s vehicle death rates to see that isn’t the case.
        • Balero 4y ago
          This is illegal in the UK. You cannot legally drive a privately owned scooter in public. They are classed as vehicles and you need to be insured to drive them, you cannot insure a private scooter. When you rent a scooter from one of the apps they come with insurance built in. Your colleague, and others, breaking the law and driving dangerously does not mean we should get rid of a means of transportation that is legally and safely used by others.
      • itg 4y ago
        People operating electric scooters recklessly do not get a pass because some people drive their cars like idiots.
        • easytiger 4y ago
          In my experience it is the majority of users here in London. They feel like quasi pedestrians so they run lights, use pavements and operate without a driving license (as required by law). Given at the moment there are so few of them relatively speaking the coming epidemic of scooters will be a disaster for pedestrians
    • vehemenz 4y ago
      I don’t get the point you are trying to make here. Drivers operating cars 100% legally are a bigger threat to pedestrians than reckless scooter users.
      • lozenge 4y ago
        Are we replacing drivers though, or just adding a new threat to our streets on top of existing ones. Here in London at least, scooter journeys are mostly impractical by private car due to lack of parking. Logically they are replacing bus journeys, walking, taxis and cycling.
      • serf 4y ago
        the point is that there is an emerging new threat. aside : i'd like to see this world of yours where cars are operated 100% legally -- even very responsible drivers tend to violate some road laws on a fairly common basis.
        • chucksta 4y ago
          They meant a fictional %100 legal operation of cars is still more dangerous than scooters
  • lmm 4y ago
    They should be banned from city centres. I'm so glad I at least live somewhere that limits them to fairly low speeds and bans people from dumping them on the public street taking up space.
    • crispyporkbites 4y ago
      Agree. Cars are a menace to society
  • serf 4y ago
    >this thing is bad, so here's another bad thing. about as useful as "Taxes? Wait until you hear about death." there can be many bad things at one time, this doesn't mean we can't discuss the smaller problems, too.
    • Thervicarl 4y ago
      I do not think the message is "here's another bad thing". It is underlining that lots of people are focusing on conflicts between scooters, bikes and pedestrian have to use walkable areas and fringe of streets/roads for moving and parking. But overlooking that probably 90% of the space is dedicated to cars (driving and parking) and that is not up for debate.
  • lm28469 4y ago
    Cars rarely park in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of your entrance door, in the middle of the bicycle lane. Cars are also rarely driven by 10-15 years old who have no respect for others. Both are a pain but cars are much more regulated. Parking a car on the sidewalk or in front of a door of any major city -> you're towed in the next 30 min. Park 5+ escooters in the middle of a busy sidewalk and you'll have to wait until someone decides to throw them away, nobody will get fines, nobody will lose his vehicle for XX hours, &c. People who use vehicles they don't own are extra reckless and less careful about what they do and where they park, it reveals how many people actually don't give a single fuck about living in organised communities and have absolutely no regards for their neighbours E scooters would be a dream if every Nth car parking spot was reserved for them and people were forced to park on these spots. You could even have them part of the city transportation subscription that way you wouldn't give money to tax dodging US companies.
    • UncleMeat 4y ago
      Cars do park in the middle of the sidewalk, we just call those things parking lots and cede them entirely to cars. I agree that scooters are aggravating but with cars we've already just lost.
      • eitland 4y ago
        Now you are just redefining words as it suits you. That is reserved for children.
• ls15 4y ago
  In Berlin I literally trip over them as soon as I leave the house. I think the companies are intentionally blocking sidewalks as a sales tactic. They are also useless for me, because I have my own bicycle, I don't like their pricing model (incentivizes reckless driving and parking) and I haven't found an option yet that is privacy-friendly. That they can use (block) the sidewalks as free ad space for their business seems to be a loophole that is just not patched yet.
  • consp 4y ago
    If I find one which is parked wrong (almost all) I move them over next to a garbage bin or put them onto the street since then they will be fined but not when parked on the sidewalk. They use public space for private gain and block sidewalks, I have no incentive not to screw with them.
    • throw__away7391 4y ago
      Yeah, when I find a car parked wrong (almost all) I key the paint. I have no incentive not to screw with them.
      • ls15 4y ago
        There is this guy who gets wrongfully parked cars towed by the police. https://taz.de/Berliner-Aktivist-ueber-Falschparker/!5760190/ https://taz.de/Berliner-Aktivist-ueber-Falschparker/!5760190... The recovery is probably more expensive than a small paint job though...
        • throw__away7391 4y ago
          > The recovery is probably more expensive than a small paint job though... So just to be clear, I'd never do this! But people who feel quite entitled to destroy property (OP's example of moving is mild, many people brag about throwing them in rivers/trash, etc.) tend to also get extremely upset about some random person keying their car.
• throw__away7391 4y ago
  "Road Users" is an interesting euphemism here. This is completely wrong. Scooters are a fantastic method of getting around a city, particularly in hotter months, and somehow I find even riding in winter a much warmer experience compared to biking. Personally I prefer using my own scooter, but often take the scooter-share anyway because I am worried about mine being stolen and it's very convenient to be able to grab one anywhere and go directly to where you're going, especially when combined with a metro trip.
  • perryizgr8 4y ago
    > I am worried about mine being stolen I am curious where you live. It seems surprising that a city that's well-off enough to have scooter ride shares has a legitimate risk of theft of said scooters from public parkings.
    • ImprobableTruth 4y ago
      Really? I don't think there's a single major European city that I'd leave a bike ( or scooter, if I had one) unsupervised.
      • perryizgr8 4y ago
        I live in Bangalore and I don't think twice before leaving my scooter in any parking space in the city. I am sure there are such areas where I would be reluctant to do so, but certainly the majority of markets and commercial areas are absolutely fine.
      • sofixa 4y ago
        Really? Amsterdam has literally millions of bikes left unsupervised. Paris is fine in the most parts. I'm fairly certain some German cities should be fine too.
        • ImprobableTruth 4y ago
          A quick google search says that in Amsterdam there are 850k bikes and an (estimated) 50-80k bike thefts. Seems like a lot to me. I could just be biased though, I've had my bike stolen while in Amsterdam.
• 88840-8855 4y ago
  Scooters would be a great solution for the last mile in the suburbs where you have to walk 1.5km from the subway to home. This is where they are not. Instead, scooters are in the ultra dense city center where you anyway have the choice between: bus, metro, light-rail, bikes and other modes of transport. This is where everyone hates them. This is the situation in Germany at least.
  • sofixa 4y ago
    > Scooters would be a great solution for the last mile in the suburbs where you have to walk 1.5km from the subway to home Absolutely, but that is contradictory to those companies' business model. They try to maximize use, a single commuter taking the scooter from their home to the train/subway station 2 times a day is very little use. Owning or long term renting makes more sense for that use case, and there's little a startup could bring there.
• johnwalkr 4y ago
  There’s some in Tokyo as a trial and they are so much more pleasant. Can only be parked on private property (you can sign up to host them at your business), and they are lightweight since they apparently don’t need to be designed to withstand vandalism. They are supposed to only be used on the road, and you need a drivers license to operate them. The only downside is they can only go 15km/h and feel a bit dangerously slow in traffic at times.
  • oblio 4y ago
    You probably shouldn't be in traffic with them. At 15kmph bike lanes and even sidewalks look like good options.
    • oblio 4y ago
      Downvoters: how is a scooter going max 15kmph a danger to pedestrians? For sure it is a danger to its rider if put next to cars. For the metrically challenged, that's a top speed of less than 9mph. It's not even the top running speed of the average person... Note, are we talking about Vespa style scooters or kick-style scooters? For the second, yeah, if capped at low speeds, should be fine on sidewalks.
      • johnwalkr 4y ago
        Kick-style but no, scooters on sidewalks in Tokyo would be terrible (for both pedestrians and scooterers).
    • johnwalkr 4y ago
      Well for the most part, roads in Tokyo are narrow and shared by bikes, and on residential streets there are are also no separated sidewalks (pedestrians walk on the shoulder). Some larger roads have a road-based bike lane plus a separated sidewalk and some have a separated sidewalk with a sidewalk-based bike lane. You are allowed to ride the scooters on the road and road-based bike lanes. This is consistent with rules for other types of vehicles such as e-bikes and it mostly works well. I just wish the speed limiter was 25km/h (same as e-bikes) instead of 15km/h, because it's being passed by all other vehicles constantly that feels a bit sketchy.
• streblo 4y ago
  I worked at a micro-mobility company and spent a lot of time working with local officials via the company's government relations team. I assure you in London specifically the local officials did anything but bend over to enable micro-mobility.
• mupuff1234 4y ago
  In Tel Aviv scooters have basically taken over sidewalks, but the local government is definitely partly to blame due to lack of enforcement. I think scooters can be a great addition, but definitely not on the expense of pedestrian safety.
• jorl17 4y ago
  I feel your downvotes. I think people downvoting you have never truly lived in a city where cars can travel just fine (because, y'know, we built a lot of infrastructure around having cars), but these scooters are an actual threat and nuissance to people. Where I live, in a city in Portugal, every single one of these companies (who somehow managed to get deals to place their scooters around) has turned the experience of walking or driving around much more miserable. While walking, you constantly find these scooters thrown to the side, fallen and just overall misplaced. It is not uncommon to have to go around a bunch of scooters, thus stepping into the actual road and risking being run over. Back where I used to live, some idiots used to leave 3 or 4 of them just on the floor at my apartment's doorstep. No one cares, it's just more of a tool for loitering. And don't get me started on kids riding them down slopes while they have that annoying "you're not paying BEEEEEEEEP". Horrible noise pollution in parks where cars don't create such problems (because they don't GO in these parks). You are also sometimes unexpectedly just scared or intimidated by people using these scooters on the sidewalk at scary speeds. Our sidewalks are not built to handle scooters and people. I mean we can barely handle bikes in this city, how would we handle unregulated speedy scooters? As a driver, these things are the bane of my existence. They are driven mostly by kids or irresponsible people. They should not use the road, but they do. They don't really follow the rules appropriately. Traffic either goes too slow behind them, which frustrates drivers and creates more traffic, or it goes too fast and risks everyone's lives. Ever since I saw the first "Lime" scooters in my city, I have despised these things with all my soul. They have brought nothing but problems to me and those around me. Maybe it's a cultural thing and we are just horrible people with no respect for others. But, as it stands, with lacking infrastructure and obviously lacking morals, I also sincerely hope these things disappear off the face of the earth (or, rather, _my_ earth -- my city).
  • hotpotamus 4y ago
    This pretty well reflects my scooter experience as a user for about a one mile ride one time. Trying to ride on the sidewalk of a downtown was painfully slow at walking speeds but seemed dangerous to pedestrians so I went into the street instead, and then I'm basically a pedestrian myself amongst the vehicles. I came away wondering how it's legal and why we don't hear about accidents constantly.