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Comment by victorhooi | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but this is just being shifty and irresponsible. And how are they using littering as a business model? The bloody twats who are picking these up without paying and dumping them in a creek are the ones littering - it's like blaming the shopping centre for you stealing, because they had stuff for you to steal.

Look at the mess Aussies have made with shopping trolleys from Coles/Woolworths. The supermarkets got so fed up they implemented locks on the wheels - nearly every supermarket here does this now.

The only reason the bikes are worse is because they're lighter/easier to move than trolleys, and the locks aren't as hard to overcome as for trolleys.

That, and Australia is in general very un-bike friendly. It's a cultural thing - we love our V6/V8 engines, our big SUVs, and our giant McMansions - we essentially copy the US in those traits. You compare this to say, Europe, or Japan which tend to be much more bike friendly.

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> Sorry, but this is just being shifty and irresponsible. And how are they using littering as a business model?

Their business model is leaving their shitty bikes all over public property. If you want to open a food stand you need a license and to comply with regulations, you can't just setup on any footpath, but oBikes are just left everywhere.

> The .... who are picking these up without paying and dumping them in a creek are the ones littering

Correct, though the term used for enabling this kind of bad behaviour, as the bike company is doing, is "creating an attractive nuisance" and it's not blameless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_doctrine

No, this does not apply at all.

> It states that a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children. The doctrine is designed to protect children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object, by imposing a liability on the landowner.

People stealing and vandalising bikes aren't children wandering into a hazard.

> People stealing and vandalising bikes aren't children wandering into a hazard.

There are differences, and there are similarities. I have heard "attractive nuisance" used (not in a legal context) in a looser sense that covers this case - ie. when you can legitimately ask "well, what else did you think was going to happen?"

> I have heard "attractive nuisance" used (not in a legal context)

Well, you linked to the legal context, so you'll have to excuse me for misunderstanding.

> "well, what else did you think was going to happen?"

People not stealing bikes, vandalising them and throwing them in nature? Do we really have to invent pseudo-legalities to get around the simple fact that people doing this are utter assholes (and criminals), regardless of whether the company providing these bikes have behaved perfectly?

Europe and Japan also seem to have cooler temperatures on average than Australia and the southern United States.

Southern Europe isn’t particularly bike friendly either.

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