I Tried San Francisco's Electric Scooter Share and It Was a Nightmare | Hacker News Reader

I Tried San Francisco's Electric Scooter Share and It Was a Nightmare

jalopnik.com

I use it all the time and love it.

I wish the media and government would talk more about the needles and drug pipes everywhere on the sidewalks rather than these awesome scooters.

I walked market street from valencia to embarcardero yesterday: a beautiful sunny day, lots of tourists and activity.

Along with my wife, we spotted a man passed out face down on the sidewalk soiled himself, another one with extreme protuberances all over his body, pants down, scratching himself with a stick, a fight on the corner of the payday loans on 7th~ with the fighters yelling at walkers to "mind their own business", broken hypodermics, and the list goes on.

It's frankly embarrassing that san francisco calls itself a touristic city. Its a showcase of american decay.

I use them a lot in SOMA and it's generally been great. I actually like Spin the best because they're the least popular and their scooters are the least worn. I have maintenance issues with maybe 20-30% of the bird/lime scooters already, so I'm wondering what it'll look like in a year.

Also I try not to look too long or go too far out of my way for a scooter. Occasionally I can't find a scooter listed on the map and it ends up negating any time savings of using a scooter.

“Generally been great” / “20-30% have issuesL. Yea something doesn’t add up or people are ridiculously forgiving just because it’s a hip SV startup that’s providing the (non-)service

You missed the distinction between brands. "Generally been great" refers to Spin scooters. "20-30% have issues" refers to Bird/Lime scooters.

Yeah I usually use Spin when possible. And the issues usually aren't deal breaking when going short distances (e.g. the motor is a bit slow or wheel is a bit off balance), for long distances/joy riding I don't mind paying the $1 to exchange them.

I'm wondering if the scooters are up to being used every day for months. The normal kind are made to last only as long as a person might use them - which might total a few hours or miles until they lose interest. Are these different?

I use it daily and it’s actually pretty nice. Personally the they don’t bother me when they are “littered” on the sidewalk either

Little authoritarians shutting down innovation with their helmet laws and whining about a scooter! on the sidewalk! are why we can't have nice things.

I loved Scoot when I was in SF. Except after it rained. Some Bezos-bald tires on those things.

“Nightmare”?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com