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I wasn't at all surprised to see the ban. The way electric scooters were handled in Atlanta was an absolute nightmare. They littered every sidewalk, blocking pe

I wasn't at all surprised to see the ban. The way electric scooters were handled in Atlanta was an absolute nightmare. They littered every sidewalk, blocking pedestrian traffic in already crowded streets. 100% of people riding them rode them on the sidewalk and collisions were pretty common. People were getting hurt, and were very afraid of getting hit. It's really unfortunate it went this way, because Atlanta badly needs alternative transpiration options. We would likely have been better off with heavy enforcement around proper storage and riding of scooters, but so many people absolutely hated them due to how it was handled that I'm not surprised to see a ban instead. The poor handling of how they were rolled out did a lot of damage long term to fixing transportation. Now there will be an uphill battle against a ban passed in reaction to the mess they created. Disappointing all around.

dcdc123 4y ago
That's not an Atlanta thing, they are a major annoyance everywhere. The people that use them just don't give a shit.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  You could say the same thing about cars. In fact it's far more common for cars to be parked on pavements blocking access than it is for e-scooters. You just don't notice because you're used to it.
  - smileysteve 4y ago
    A major reason that scooters were banned in Atlanta was because cars (and a bus) kept accidentally killing people on scooters.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      A bus can never kill anyone, it's public transportation and is therefore infallible. Cars are heavy killing machines remember, but busses and trains are perfectly magical and never harm pedestrians at all. (Sarcasm, for the uninitiated.)
    - Quillbert182 4y ago
      Largely because the people on scooters ignore traffic laws. I'm in an area of Atlanta where they are still allowed, and the riders regularly run stop signs and red lights without checking if a car is coming.
      - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
        Wow, they sound almost as bad as car drivers.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Exactly, and the only people surprised by this are those who assume that everyone is perfectly ethical and empathetic, just like them.
- actionablefiber 4y ago
  The companies operating them seem to actively encourage users not to give a shit. They're dockless, you can end a ride anywhere, if the battery dies or you get bored you're just supposed to leave it wherever and let it be someone else's problem. The companies running them all seem content to just proliferate scooters all over the street with no regard for expense or the non-scooting public since they're all trying to out-compete each other. Here in the DC area I have a particular love for Capital Bikeshare because they're extremely affordable and (mostly) use dedicated docking stations.
  - Reason077 4y ago
    Here in London they’re pretty strict about parking them in designated marked spots, not leaving them littering streets randomly. The apps will remind you repeatedly to park correctly and will fine you if you don’t, which I’m pretty sure they’re required to do as part of their licensing conditions.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Yeah, all of these problems just come down to local politics. If your city’s political class values pedestrians, they’ll make the companies liable and it’ll magically turn out that they are actually capable of enforcing where their GPS-tracked devices are parked.
      - sofixa 4y ago
        No, it's down to companies exploiting lack of regulations to get away with as little as possible ("free market"). Ideally they shouldn't be assholes, but failing that, local authorities should restrict them.
        acdha 4y ago
        That’s just restating what I said. If the city has political will, the regulations will be enforced. Letting companies ignore the law is a policy choice. As a thought exercise, any time we see widespread lawlessness ask whether it’d still happen if, say, a random citizen could get $100 by sending a video to the city (ala NYC’s truck idling law) or if the city employees like cops or parking enforcement had similar incentives. There are downsides to that kind of thing and I’m not suggesting it as the ideal general policy but I think it is important to remember that most of the time these are not problems we don’t know how to fix but rather problems people don’t think are their job to fix.
- catawbasam 4y ago
  Most travel modes have a downside. For example, car and suv drivers routinely speed through pedestrian crossings and kill large numbers of pedestrians. Scooters may be annoying, but at least they aren't deadly.
  - monksy 4y ago
    It may not be as deadly but it does still produce minor and major injuries that send the riders and people they run into to the ER. Please stop whitewashing incidents and the behavior of the scooterists.
    - vkou 4y ago
      Just because you've banned scooters doesn't mean the morons operating them went away, or stopped traveling. And I'd much rather deal with a moron on a scooter than a moron in a car. I'd daresay that statistics on both deaths and injuries caused by alternative modes of transportation are with me on this. I mean, I get it. Scooters are a little scary and annoying and take up space. People don't like them. All these same criticisms apply for cars, but dialed up to 11.
      - trgn 4y ago
        Damn, I wish I could upvote twice.
- acdha 4y ago
  It all comes down to infrastructure. They’re not a big problem here in DC compared to cars because we have wide sidewalks and a growing number of protected bike lanes. People driving cars are responsible for 100% of the fatalities, almost all of the injuries, and almost all of the blocked sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. and that’s where the focus should be. What I would like is basically rebranding bike lanes as low-speed mobility lanes. Take the parking and/or right lane full-width, put up bollards, and zone it for vehicles with a max speed of 20mph (bike, scooter, trike, hoverboard, electric wheelchair, who cares - if it doesn’t pollute and takes up about as much space as a person, it’s welcome). If space allows, add protected parking spots for pickup/drop off and handicapped parking and tell everyone else that they need to pay market-rate for parking.
  - mjevans 4y ago
    Make it 3D instead of taking space from cars and I agree. Cars are dangerous and the best engineering solution is to isolate pedestrian scale speed and mass transfer from multi-ton industrial equipment. So go 3D, give cars their own isolated layer, give pedestrians and slightly faster moving exposed humans their own layer.
    - burtness 4y ago
      Wouldn't the path of least resistance here be giving cars the surface layer?
      - mjevans 4y ago
        Vehicles also include construction cranes, dump and garbage trucks, etc. Those might have unlimited height, but weight is also a factor. I'm split between an idea like Tokyo's underground mall areas (which work really well with climate control) and just over-specing several stories above ground for a platform layer that can be level across the whole city and completely free of non-emergency moving vehicles.
    - asoneth 4y ago
      This is sort of what Boston tried to do with the big dig[1], where several highways were buried under the city. It ended up costing billions and took 15 years to complete. Also, while the RFK Greenway is nice it is also regularly bisected by busy surface roads and on/off ramps so it sometimes feels more like a grassy median than a real park. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig
- trgn 4y ago
  The people that use them ride on the sidewalk because they will get maimed or killed by distracted or belligerent drivers if they scoot on the street. It's not the scooters that are the problem, it's a city environment that encourages aggressive and careless driving.
- Sakos 4y ago
  I own my own escooter and I do give a shit. Don't lump us all in together. I think people who own escooters are far more conscientious than people using rentals, and I believe a better solution is to incentivize private ownership.
- deleted 4y ago
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noneeeed 4y ago
We have a rental scheme in Bath which seems to be working pretty well. You are supposed to leave them at designated spots around the city (I think you get a discount) and on the whole people seem to be pretty good about where they leave them. While I don't personally like the idea of using one (I prefer a bike or walking), they have been really popular. One of the interesting effects is that along with a huge surge in ebike riders, scooters have made drivers much more alert to non-car road users. Cyclist friends have told me that cycling around town feels much safer, with drivers giving them more room, and fewer moments where it's obvious the driver just wasn't paying attention.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Your second point is huge - pedestrian fatalities go down the more pedestrians ignore "traffic rules" - partially because the pedestrians are more alert (not assuming a crosswalk will save them, because there may be none) but also because drivers are more alert. The unexpected is always going to be dangerous just because it's unexpected.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
From a visitors perspective, I flew down for two days at the state capital, and used a scooter liberally riding around downtown, and the campus of Georgia state university. I did not see the littering of sidewalks at all. I saw people riding scooters in the street, and on the sidewalks, but even with a lot of people I didn’t see anything of what you’re speaking of. Scooters are great, they are low-cost easy way to get around. I think anger in Atlanta towards the scooters, is similar to why Marta will never go up 75.
- jhoward321 4y ago
  To be fair, the issue is probably not going to be as evident downtown. Go over to the east side in old fourth ward or inman park and I think you'd have come to a different conclusion.
stuaxo 4y ago
Sounds like you need segregated cycle lanes for then to ride on.
- TrueGeek 4y ago
  We’ve started to get some in Atlanta, but only in the center of town. I live out in the suburbs. I haven’t been able to try them out yet because the every time I’ve ridden into town the lane was filled with half a dozen delivery vans.
jeffbee 4y ago
You can say each of those things about cars and it is equally true. You're just acclimated to it. Parked on sidewalks: yes Blocking crowded streets: yes Collisions common: yes People getting hurt: yes
- andirk 4y ago
  Cars/trucks do an extra special addition though: park in a lane because you're delivering something, or, ya know, doing something outside of the vehicle.
  - matsemann 4y ago
    I've reported hundreds of cars parking in the bicycle lane this year alone..
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Has anything happened from it?
      - matsemann 4y ago
        Some news articles from me and other activists doing stuff has led to it becoming a higher priority in the department. So twice as many ticketed for it this year than earlier years in my city. Still, the problem is that it's possible. Paint isn't infrastructure.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- nirvdrum 4y ago
  Do cars collide with people on sidewalks that frequently?
H1Supreme 4y ago
> The way electric scooters were handled in Atlanta was an absolute nightmare Is there an example of a city who has handled them correctly? Your description describes every implementation I've seen thus far.
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Paris and rome are great examples from my perspective.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > Paris With 2000 escooter accidents and 20+ deaths idk if we can call it a great example
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      Now do car deaths. If 20 is the threshold for failure then get all those cars off the roads immediately.
      - lm28469 4y ago
        Well, yes go ahead I won't argue against that edit: I checked the numbers, ~6000 accidents, ~40 deaths Knowing that it includes escooters as they're motorised vehicles, and given the number of cars vs escooters I'd say you're muuuuch more likely to get wrecked on a escooter than anything else you could use on the road. Bicycles have the same deaths stats as escooters but in Paris we have 450k+ cars 500k+ bikes 15k escooters
        CydeWeys 4y ago
        Wow, I'm surprised the annual car deaths in Paris are so low. Your vehicles are much better behaved than they are in the US, where car deaths are rampant. NYC for instance experiences >200 deaths caused by cars/trucks every year, and that's a relatively low rate relative to our population size compared to basically any other large American city (all of which are much more car-dependent).
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stall84 4y ago
people are still throwing them wherever they die.. I feel awful for the workers that go by at night to find/recharge them when I see them strewn in the most inexplicably-off-sidewalk locations in piedmont park, etc.
- dTal 4y ago
  Why do you feel awful for the workers, particularly? I assume they are hired to do exactly that? As jobs go it doesn't sound too terrible.
prepend 4y ago
There’s very little pedestrian traffic in Atlanta so the sidewalk riding didn’t bother me. This is also a city where the police have done nothing to stop people riding go carts and stuff on the streets disrupting traffic and hurting people. Or tent clusters on sidewalks and off ramps. So it was weird they banned scooters and allow things with no benefit to the city. There’s also an angle that the city is really big on pushing their boondoggle public transport streetcar project and didn’t like cheaper and more environmentally friendly options available for the public. I think Atlanta banned the scooters because the companies didn’t pay off the right locals. They could have tried to fix the issues and work with the scooter companies.
- gedy 4y ago
  > pushing their boondoggle public transport streetcar project and didn’t like cheaper and more environmentally friendly options available for the public. Yeah I wish more people would recognize this. Many "transit activists" are basically just lobbyists for the regional MTA/MTDs and want to minimize competition.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> 100% of people riding them rode them on the sidewalk A few months ago I saw a man in Seattle die while riding an electric scooter on a street going down a hill. He was going way too fast, probably trying to keep up with the cars I think, started wobbling, fell, and bounced his head off the street. Dead on impact. Two points: 1. These scooters are not stable enough to operate at road speed safely. The wheels are too small for it, the dynamics of controlling one at speed are all fucked up. They are substantially less safe than even bicycles. 2. Rental scooters don't come with rental helmets. I think a helmet would have saved his life. But the whole supposed convenience of the scooter rental scheme assumes no helmets, since virtually nobody leaves home in the morning carrying a helmet on the off chance they may want to rent a scooter.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I saw helmets on rental scooters recently - they were green and maybe in Miami? If provided people might use them but I bet we could make a technology that would prevent the scooter from moving unless the helmet was attached properly. At that point people would "know" you have to wear them so it wouldn't be terribly uncool.
  - ars 4y ago
    I'd be grossed out wearing a helmet someone else wore that wasn't cleaned. I might do it anyway to save my life, but it would definitely be a deterrent. Also heads come in sizes, so a single helmet would not really work - you'd need "helmet stands" where you could get one that fits, and that give them a disinfectant spray between customers (likes shoes in a bowling alley). Maybe Amazon style lockers?
    - ay 4y ago
      You could get “helmet adapter caps”, similar to the rubber ones you wear in swimming pools. It would be much more compact than a helmet, and could solve both the hygiene (by virtue of being hermetic around the head) and size (by “padding” the head to some standard dimension so the helmet fits well. Then the helmet could tighten. (Disclaimer: Just an idea.not sure how practical it would be)
e40 4y ago
The son of my best friend face planted and had to have facial reconstructive surgery after a crash. The year before the pandemic I spent each day on my walk to/from work arguing with scooter drivers about them being on the sidewalk and how dangerous it was. A child was hit by one in my area and seriously hurt.
maerF0x0 4y ago
Ive always wondered how electric scooters would fare if they were speed limited. Something like 6-9MPH (~15km/hr) . It's still much much faster than walking, but still about 1/2 the top speed currently observed.
- Sakos 4y ago
  This is pretty much the case all across Europe, where they're limited to 20-25km/h.
- kqr 4y ago
  This seems like a good general solution. Cars should be capped to similar speeds in dense areas! Especially given their large mass.
  - NickC25 4y ago
    That was the case when scooters were brought back in Miami after initially being banned. It was a terrible idea, because the city had 2 mandates to allow them to come back - 1. Speed caps (10mph), and 2. mandating that all scooters were banned from sidewalks. If you know anything about how terrible Miami drivers are, you'll quickly realize that those mandates were designed to make the scooter idea fail. Forcing someone to go 10mph on a busy multi-lane road known for bad drivers is a death wish.
NickC25 4y ago
Same thing happened in Miami - it was a great idea to have them because it really did help relieve congestion amongst the downtown and financial districts. Then they got banned because people are idiots and rode them idiotically and left them everywhere. The city then brought them back, put caps on their speed, forced them to be rode only on streets and financially incentivized people to leave them in predetermined drop-off areas. It lasted about 2 weeks before that was shown to not work, because, again, people didn't really pay attention to the rules (and some of the rules, such as banning them from sidewalks, are outright dumb due to the fact that dangerous wild driving on main roads is celebrated in Miami). It really is unfortunate just like you said - because they were a real asset to public mobility.
StillBored 4y ago
What I don't understand is why its so hard to have designated drop off points every block or so. The scooter vendors should be responsible for putting them in appropriate places (which might mean renting the space if needed). Then use some geofencing to fine people who fail to park/etc them properly. Sure, allowing people to drop them off in the middle of a congested sidewalk is easy on the asshole doing it, and the companies might have a bit less revenue because its inconvenient to park them properly, but so what. They might be able to make some percentage of the fine back if people still refuse to comply. The sidewalk is public space, they have _LESS_ rights as a corp to be there trying to profit off it than the citizens walking the sidewalk IMHO.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  The ire towards Marta in Atlanta would be significantly less if there were cutouts for buses (Ubers or delivery vehicles) at all.
smileysteve 4y ago
The minimum outcome (after deaths) should have been that Crescent and N Highland bar districts closed to through traffic weekend nights after 9 (and after sporting events), and all public transit buses get 360 degree cameras. Instead, we have bars (RiRa and Hand In Hand were unable to afford leases pre pandemic) shutting down, street drifters, crime, and significant amounts of drunk driving.

dcdc123 4y ago

That's not an Atlanta thing, they are a major annoyance everywhere. The people that use them just don't give a shit.

IshKebab 4y ago
You could say the same thing about cars. In fact it's far more common for cars to be parked on pavements blocking access than it is for e-scooters. You just don't notice because you're used to it.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  A major reason that scooters were banned in Atlanta was because cars (and a bus) kept accidentally killing people on scooters.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    A bus can never kill anyone, it's public transportation and is therefore infallible. Cars are heavy killing machines remember, but busses and trains are perfectly magical and never harm pedestrians at all. (Sarcasm, for the uninitiated.)
  - Quillbert182 4y ago
    Largely because the people on scooters ignore traffic laws. I'm in an area of Atlanta where they are still allowed, and the riders regularly run stop signs and red lights without checking if a car is coming.
    - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      Wow, they sound almost as bad as car drivers.
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Exactly, and the only people surprised by this are those who assume that everyone is perfectly ethical and empathetic, just like them.
actionablefiber 4y ago
The companies operating them seem to actively encourage users not to give a shit. They're dockless, you can end a ride anywhere, if the battery dies or you get bored you're just supposed to leave it wherever and let it be someone else's problem. The companies running them all seem content to just proliferate scooters all over the street with no regard for expense or the non-scooting public since they're all trying to out-compete each other. Here in the DC area I have a particular love for Capital Bikeshare because they're extremely affordable and (mostly) use dedicated docking stations.
- Reason077 4y ago
  Here in London they’re pretty strict about parking them in designated marked spots, not leaving them littering streets randomly. The apps will remind you repeatedly to park correctly and will fine you if you don’t, which I’m pretty sure they’re required to do as part of their licensing conditions.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Yeah, all of these problems just come down to local politics. If your city’s political class values pedestrians, they’ll make the companies liable and it’ll magically turn out that they are actually capable of enforcing where their GPS-tracked devices are parked.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      No, it's down to companies exploiting lack of regulations to get away with as little as possible ("free market"). Ideally they shouldn't be assholes, but failing that, local authorities should restrict them.
      - acdha 4y ago
        That’s just restating what I said. If the city has political will, the regulations will be enforced. Letting companies ignore the law is a policy choice. As a thought exercise, any time we see widespread lawlessness ask whether it’d still happen if, say, a random citizen could get $100 by sending a video to the city (ala NYC’s truck idling law) or if the city employees like cops or parking enforcement had similar incentives. There are downsides to that kind of thing and I’m not suggesting it as the ideal general policy but I think it is important to remember that most of the time these are not problems we don’t know how to fix but rather problems people don’t think are their job to fix.
catawbasam 4y ago
Most travel modes have a downside. For example, car and suv drivers routinely speed through pedestrian crossings and kill large numbers of pedestrians. Scooters may be annoying, but at least they aren't deadly.
- monksy 4y ago
  It may not be as deadly but it does still produce minor and major injuries that send the riders and people they run into to the ER. Please stop whitewashing incidents and the behavior of the scooterists.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Just because you've banned scooters doesn't mean the morons operating them went away, or stopped traveling. And I'd much rather deal with a moron on a scooter than a moron in a car. I'd daresay that statistics on both deaths and injuries caused by alternative modes of transportation are with me on this. I mean, I get it. Scooters are a little scary and annoying and take up space. People don't like them. All these same criticisms apply for cars, but dialed up to 11.
    - trgn 4y ago
      Damn, I wish I could upvote twice.
acdha 4y ago
It all comes down to infrastructure. They’re not a big problem here in DC compared to cars because we have wide sidewalks and a growing number of protected bike lanes. People driving cars are responsible for 100% of the fatalities, almost all of the injuries, and almost all of the blocked sidewalks, crosswalks, etc. and that’s where the focus should be. What I would like is basically rebranding bike lanes as low-speed mobility lanes. Take the parking and/or right lane full-width, put up bollards, and zone it for vehicles with a max speed of 20mph (bike, scooter, trike, hoverboard, electric wheelchair, who cares - if it doesn’t pollute and takes up about as much space as a person, it’s welcome). If space allows, add protected parking spots for pickup/drop off and handicapped parking and tell everyone else that they need to pay market-rate for parking.
- mjevans 4y ago
  Make it 3D instead of taking space from cars and I agree. Cars are dangerous and the best engineering solution is to isolate pedestrian scale speed and mass transfer from multi-ton industrial equipment. So go 3D, give cars their own isolated layer, give pedestrians and slightly faster moving exposed humans their own layer.
  - burtness 4y ago
    Wouldn't the path of least resistance here be giving cars the surface layer?
    - mjevans 4y ago
      Vehicles also include construction cranes, dump and garbage trucks, etc. Those might have unlimited height, but weight is also a factor. I'm split between an idea like Tokyo's underground mall areas (which work really well with climate control) and just over-specing several stories above ground for a platform layer that can be level across the whole city and completely free of non-emergency moving vehicles.
  - asoneth 4y ago
    This is sort of what Boston tried to do with the big dig[1], where several highways were buried under the city. It ended up costing billions and took 15 years to complete. Also, while the RFK Greenway is nice it is also regularly bisected by busy surface roads and on/off ramps so it sometimes feels more like a grassy median than a real park. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig
trgn 4y ago
The people that use them ride on the sidewalk because they will get maimed or killed by distracted or belligerent drivers if they scoot on the street. It's not the scooters that are the problem, it's a city environment that encourages aggressive and careless driving.
Sakos 4y ago
I own my own escooter and I do give a shit. Don't lump us all in together. I think people who own escooters are far more conscientious than people using rentals, and I believe a better solution is to incentivize private ownership.
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noneeeed 4y ago

We have a rental scheme in Bath which seems to be working pretty well. You are supposed to leave them at designated spots around the city (I think you get a discount) and on the whole people seem to be pretty good about where they leave them. While I don't personally like the idea of using one (I prefer a bike or walking), they have been really popular. One of the interesting effects is that along with a huge surge in ebike riders, scooters have made drivers much more alert to non-car road users. Cyclist friends have told me that cycling around town feels much safer, with drivers giving them more room, and fewer moments where it's obvious the driver just wasn't paying attention.

bombcar 4y ago
Your second point is huge - pedestrian fatalities go down the more pedestrians ignore "traffic rules" - partially because the pedestrians are more alert (not assuming a crosswalk will save them, because there may be none) but also because drivers are more alert. The unexpected is always going to be dangerous just because it's unexpected.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

From a visitors perspective, I flew down for two days at the state capital, and used a scooter liberally riding around downtown, and the campus of Georgia state university. I did not see the littering of sidewalks at all. I saw people riding scooters in the street, and on the sidewalks, but even with a lot of people I didn’t see anything of what you’re speaking of. Scooters are great, they are low-cost easy way to get around. I think anger in Atlanta towards the scooters, is similar to why Marta will never go up 75.

jhoward321 4y ago
To be fair, the issue is probably not going to be as evident downtown. Go over to the east side in old fourth ward or inman park and I think you'd have come to a different conclusion.

stuaxo 4y ago

Sounds like you need segregated cycle lanes for then to ride on.

TrueGeek 4y ago
We’ve started to get some in Atlanta, but only in the center of town. I live out in the suburbs. I haven’t been able to try them out yet because the every time I’ve ridden into town the lane was filled with half a dozen delivery vans.

jeffbee 4y ago

You can say each of those things about cars and it is equally true. You're just acclimated to it. Parked on sidewalks: yes Blocking crowded streets: yes Collisions common: yes People getting hurt: yes

andirk 4y ago
Cars/trucks do an extra special addition though: park in a lane because you're delivering something, or, ya know, doing something outside of the vehicle.
- matsemann 4y ago
  I've reported hundreds of cars parking in the bicycle lane this year alone..
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Has anything happened from it?
    - matsemann 4y ago
      Some news articles from me and other activists doing stuff has led to it becoming a higher priority in the department. So twice as many ticketed for it this year than earlier years in my city. Still, the problem is that it's possible. Paint isn't infrastructure.
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nirvdrum 4y ago
Do cars collide with people on sidewalks that frequently?

H1Supreme 4y ago

> The way electric scooters were handled in Atlanta was an absolute nightmare Is there an example of a city who has handled them correctly? Your description describes every implementation I've seen thus far.

dr_dshiv 4y ago
Paris and rome are great examples from my perspective.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > Paris With 2000 escooter accidents and 20+ deaths idk if we can call it a great example
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    Now do car deaths. If 20 is the threshold for failure then get all those cars off the roads immediately.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Well, yes go ahead I won't argue against that edit: I checked the numbers, ~6000 accidents, ~40 deaths Knowing that it includes escooters as they're motorised vehicles, and given the number of cars vs escooters I'd say you're muuuuch more likely to get wrecked on a escooter than anything else you could use on the road. Bicycles have the same deaths stats as escooters but in Paris we have 450k+ cars 500k+ bikes 15k escooters
      - CydeWeys 4y ago
        Wow, I'm surprised the annual car deaths in Paris are so low. Your vehicles are much better behaved than they are in the US, where car deaths are rampant. NYC for instance experiences >200 deaths caused by cars/trucks every year, and that's a relatively low rate relative to our population size compared to basically any other large American city (all of which are much more car-dependent).

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stall84 4y ago

people are still throwing them wherever they die.. I feel awful for the workers that go by at night to find/recharge them when I see them strewn in the most inexplicably-off-sidewalk locations in piedmont park, etc.

dTal 4y ago
Why do you feel awful for the workers, particularly? I assume they are hired to do exactly that? As jobs go it doesn't sound too terrible.

prepend 4y ago

There’s very little pedestrian traffic in Atlanta so the sidewalk riding didn’t bother me. This is also a city where the police have done nothing to stop people riding go carts and stuff on the streets disrupting traffic and hurting people. Or tent clusters on sidewalks and off ramps. So it was weird they banned scooters and allow things with no benefit to the city. There’s also an angle that the city is really big on pushing their boondoggle public transport streetcar project and didn’t like cheaper and more environmentally friendly options available for the public. I think Atlanta banned the scooters because the companies didn’t pay off the right locals. They could have tried to fix the issues and work with the scooter companies.

gedy 4y ago
> pushing their boondoggle public transport streetcar project and didn’t like cheaper and more environmentally friendly options available for the public. Yeah I wish more people would recognize this. Many "transit activists" are basically just lobbyists for the regional MTA/MTDs and want to minimize competition.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> 100% of people riding them rode them on the sidewalk A few months ago I saw a man in Seattle die while riding an electric scooter on a street going down a hill. He was going way too fast, probably trying to keep up with the cars I think, started wobbling, fell, and bounced his head off the street. Dead on impact. Two points: 1. These scooters are not stable enough to operate at road speed safely. The wheels are too small for it, the dynamics of controlling one at speed are all fucked up. They are substantially less safe than even bicycles. 2. Rental scooters don't come with rental helmets. I think a helmet would have saved his life. But the whole supposed convenience of the scooter rental scheme assumes no helmets, since virtually nobody leaves home in the morning carrying a helmet on the off chance they may want to rent a scooter.

bombcar 4y ago
I saw helmets on rental scooters recently - they were green and maybe in Miami? If provided people might use them but I bet we could make a technology that would prevent the scooter from moving unless the helmet was attached properly. At that point people would "know" you have to wear them so it wouldn't be terribly uncool.
- ars 4y ago
  I'd be grossed out wearing a helmet someone else wore that wasn't cleaned. I might do it anyway to save my life, but it would definitely be a deterrent. Also heads come in sizes, so a single helmet would not really work - you'd need "helmet stands" where you could get one that fits, and that give them a disinfectant spray between customers (likes shoes in a bowling alley). Maybe Amazon style lockers?
  - ay 4y ago
    You could get “helmet adapter caps”, similar to the rubber ones you wear in swimming pools. It would be much more compact than a helmet, and could solve both the hygiene (by virtue of being hermetic around the head) and size (by “padding” the head to some standard dimension so the helmet fits well. Then the helmet could tighten. (Disclaimer: Just an idea.not sure how practical it would be)

e40 4y ago

The son of my best friend face planted and had to have facial reconstructive surgery after a crash. The year before the pandemic I spent each day on my walk to/from work arguing with scooter drivers about them being on the sidewalk and how dangerous it was. A child was hit by one in my area and seriously hurt.

maerF0x0 4y ago

Ive always wondered how electric scooters would fare if they were speed limited. Something like 6-9MPH (~15km/hr) . It's still much much faster than walking, but still about 1/2 the top speed currently observed.

Sakos 4y ago
This is pretty much the case all across Europe, where they're limited to 20-25km/h.
kqr 4y ago
This seems like a good general solution. Cars should be capped to similar speeds in dense areas! Especially given their large mass.
- NickC25 4y ago
  That was the case when scooters were brought back in Miami after initially being banned. It was a terrible idea, because the city had 2 mandates to allow them to come back - 1. Speed caps (10mph), and 2. mandating that all scooters were banned from sidewalks. If you know anything about how terrible Miami drivers are, you'll quickly realize that those mandates were designed to make the scooter idea fail. Forcing someone to go 10mph on a busy multi-lane road known for bad drivers is a death wish.

NickC25 4y ago

Same thing happened in Miami - it was a great idea to have them because it really did help relieve congestion amongst the downtown and financial districts. Then they got banned because people are idiots and rode them idiotically and left them everywhere. The city then brought them back, put caps on their speed, forced them to be rode only on streets and financially incentivized people to leave them in predetermined drop-off areas. It lasted about 2 weeks before that was shown to not work, because, again, people didn't really pay attention to the rules (and some of the rules, such as banning them from sidewalks, are outright dumb due to the fact that dangerous wild driving on main roads is celebrated in Miami). It really is unfortunate just like you said - because they were a real asset to public mobility.

StillBored 4y ago

What I don't understand is why its so hard to have designated drop off points every block or so. The scooter vendors should be responsible for putting them in appropriate places (which might mean renting the space if needed). Then use some geofencing to fine people who fail to park/etc them properly. Sure, allowing people to drop them off in the middle of a congested sidewalk is easy on the asshole doing it, and the companies might have a bit less revenue because its inconvenient to park them properly, but so what. They might be able to make some percentage of the fine back if people still refuse to comply. The sidewalk is public space, they have _LESS_ rights as a corp to be there trying to profit off it than the citizens walking the sidewalk IMHO.

smileysteve 4y ago
The ire towards Marta in Atlanta would be significantly less if there were cutouts for buses (Ubers or delivery vehicles) at all.

smileysteve 4y ago

The minimum outcome (after deaths) should have been that Crescent and N Highland bar districts closed to through traffic weekend nights after 9 (and after sporting events), and all public transit buses get 360 degree cameras. Instead, we have bars (RiRa and Hand In Hand were unable to afford leases pre pandemic) shutting down, street drifters, crime, and significant amounts of drunk driving.