Unfortunately, the Electric Scooters Are Fantastic
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I commute 9 miles one way into SF by electric bike, and while I love my commute my quality of life would be so much higher if I didn't have to worry about merging with car traffic at several points on the route, or (much worse) cars randomly swerving out of traffic into the bike lane and stopping right in front of me to drop off a passenger or whatever.
On repeated visits to NY, frustrated by the inefficiency of getting from A to B, one of my repeating dreams is the idea of closing every other street (both N-S and E-W) in the grid system to cars, and only allowing bikes, scooters, skateboards, and maybe buses. (Delivery traffic strictly outside daytime hours).
Imagine the transport utopia that would gradually develop, as more any more people not only feel safe to ride bikes, but realised that it represented the most efficient solution.
Package-carrying bikes can take a surprising amount. https://www.carvelo.ch/de/private/modelle/data/51.php
Anything that can be carried by a bicycle courier, must be. Anything else, <6am or >9pm (for example).
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/the-barcelona-...
[0]:http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2014/12/roads.jpg....
Frequent speed bumps are laid down, and (just like for its partner car-centric road) all cross intersections have stop signs leading _into_ the boulevard. They're generally in good surface shape. You can roll right along at full speed, mostly just watching for pedestrians (the lack of cars also makes them pleasant for walking).
Not really possible without a mostly-grid road system, of course, but where it is, it's awesome.
Or go faster and get an electric motorbike or Vespa and ride in the middle of the lane with traffic.
[Random pet peeve: when a clearly-marked bike lane ends and combines into car lane, and still, bicyclists insist on filtering up the side of the curb up to the stop line. Please, don't)
Re filtering, is that technically against the rules? It's a single lane at that point, but in CA it's legal to share the lane if there's room. Seems like a cyclist or motorbike has the right to lanesplit and move up.
Yes, but in this case you filter on the driver's left. You don't filter up in the 10cm between the curb and the car when the driver is signaling right; it's a dick move and eventually you're going to get hurt.
I commuted in SF for a year, and I'd guess 75% of cars don't know why the bike lane starts getting dashed before an intersection.
The biggest risk is a car turning into you at the junction because you were in a blind spot. It's much safer to be at the front of the queue so you are clearly visible, and can clear the danger zone ahead of the traffic.
Also, in general, things you see cyclists doing that you perceive as dangerous very rarely are - almost every serious bike car crash is because the driver didn't see the cyclist and turned into them. The cyclist behaving most dangerously is timidly hugging the curb trying to stay out of your way!
Far less dorky than a Segway. I think they're playful enough to work from a marketing perspective.
I was bored with new technologies, bored with their repetitive promises, their glassy aesthetic, their oligarchic subsidization.
This sentence is fantastic and absolutely on point! The street finds its own uses for technology.
On that first ride, a few things became apparent. First, I was more likely to respect traffic laws on a scooter than on a bike, because I wasn’t as worried about conserving my momentum on a scooter.
This is a profound observation. Robinson just earned his pay for the week! (A no prize for someone who understands that reference.) What if virtually all bikes had capacitors, regenerative braking, and electric assist? There would be no reason for the endless "momentum hacks" bicyclists are guilty of.
I consistently see people zooming down the sidewalks on scooters because: they fit, they accelerate quickly, and they are often too slow to be in the bike lane. Personally I think this was the massive failure by these scooter companies. No one is riding them in the streets. They are on the sidewalk going 10+mph. I really don’t think people would be quite as upset if they weren’t constantly dodging scooters going down the sidewalk.
Anyways, I look forward to seeing how this plays out.
A know annoyance to all car drivers: Tourists. Their RVs spoil every mountain highway. Their rental cars slow down every bridge. Their docker bikes slow down bike lanes. And their lackadaisical meandering on foot slows down airports. Anyone who is looking at the view should be legally obligated to get out of the way of anyone trying to get to work.
It's not taking "ownership" of a city, most of what he mentioned is just about avoiding being in the way when occupying a shared space. It's basic manners.
-anyone frustrated by people with luggage walking in the middle of the road.
Scooters tend to weave across the bike lane and need to be given a wide berth when passing (not sure if it's a balance issue, or the rider is trying to avoid hitting road imperfections with those tiny 4" wheels)
I assume this is a function of when/where we're on the road. I myself swerve once in a while because there are a few giant pits on 3rd in SOMA :)
Yes.
Source: was riding on a scooter to work for a couple of years. If wheels are made of plastic instead of rubber and air, you can feel every tooth filling on the smallest unevenness.
What? There is a huge population of cyclists out there. Do you live on top of a hill?
In Houston, I'd see bike "momentum hacks" often in all the occasions I'd see a bike. You don't see them that often, but they are often alarming, sometimes catastrophic, and sometimes fatal. I recently saw SF helmet-cam footage of an intelligent, conscientious biking coworker, who decided to pass a van on the right, only to find that the van was turning right. While trying to make a left in busy traffic, I was ambushed by a bike-bro in North Beach. If I spotted him a fraction of a second later, he would have been catapulted by the instant torque of an electric car.
"Momentum hacks" are not that frequent, but given the relative infrequency of cyclists as compared to cars, the frequency of severe flirting with catastrophe is quite alarming. They cause vehicle operators who are 100X more fragile to act as if they were nigh invulnerable.
I can't speak to those locations but FYI, in Massachusetts, the driver would be eligible for a citation in those instances, even without a collision. Turning traffic always yields right of way to straight-through traffic.
Speaking with cyclists who practice such "momentum hacks", I often get the response along the lines of "Even obeying the law, drivers nearly kill me every day so what good is the law?".
For right turns it makes sense since the bike nominally has a travel lane that’s being crossed.
(I’m interpreting GP’s comment as if both the car and bike were traveling in the same direction.)
The biggest conflict with cars & bikes I see is spacing; either bikes move to the side and let cars pull up or (more likely) bikes swim up through traffic to the front. The biker is always the loser.
Speed differential is the other conflict, with bike &cars, bikes & pedestrians, fast bikes & slow bikes. Either the vehicles have an inherent diff, or the terrain is too fast/slow for one of the parties. Your best bet is too assume the worst of everyone else and try and keep the interaction in perspective of the bigger picture.
In MA, bikes may explicitly ride to the right of cars if desired. Cars may pass bikes on the shoulder if "safe and reasonable" but peculiarly, that language is omitted for bikes.
More here: http://www.massbike.org/laws
> Speed differential is the other conflict, with bike &cars, bikes & pedestrians, fast bikes & slow bikes. Either the vehicles have an inherent diff, or the terrain is too fast/slow for one of the parties. Your best bet is too assume the worst of everyone else and try and keep the interaction in perspective of the bigger picture.
In Boston, you'd be a fool not to assume the worst of everyone else ;).
Sorry to pile on, but that didn't sound to me like you're saying that some are riding in the street and some aren't.
I honestly think the electric bikes (Jump/GoBikes) that are coming out are better options. For one you can go faster and further for cheaper than the scooters.
Also the safety issues, I felt much more unstable on the scooter than anything else. I almost ate it when i rolled over a small pothole.
The stuff that kills people should have to do the full stop.
Yet cars kill about 20 people a year in SF, and people just shrug and ignore it.
Slippery slope...
14 pedestrians were killed in SF traffic accidents last year, all by cars. 0 by bikes. Bikers in SF aren't cited for rolling stops so we are already living in the Idaho stop world. It is very safe. [1]
Bikers should indeed be very observant when approaching crosswalks and intersections. And they usually are, because if nothing else, their lives depend on it.
Also what sucks was the fact that bunch of people in front of me just flew through the stop sign without even slowing down, and then me, who slows down at every stop to almost full stop (just short of tilting the bike and putting leg on the ground) was stopped by police car behind me.
How many bike riders got themselves killed in intersections?
Bikers should indeed be very observant when approaching crosswalks and intersections. And they usually are, because if nothing else, their lives depend on it.
And yet, I keep on running into situations where I think to myself, "How in the hell do you think you can survive while doing that!?" Here's the thing. The level of lack-of-foresight that makes someone a cringey inconsiderate nuisance in a car is about the same lack-of-foresight that makes someone a likely organ donor on a bike.
Tongue in cheek tinfoil hat stuff: Maybe the bike trend is just a machination of aging oligarchs who want to ensure transplant organ supplies? Biking is popular in exactly the places where the population is healthier (better donors) and left leaning (more likely to donate.)
1 cyclist was killed in a SOMA intersection by a DUI operator through no fault of her own with legal right-of-way.
Not true IME, but it may be a cultural difference. Stop signs are relatively uncommon in Finland. I can only recall one intersection with a stop sign in my previous home town of about 20k people. I have not found any stop signs yet in my new place with 140k people.
Most intersections have yield signs or lights; only the smallest of streets have no signs whatsoever.
Traffic works pretty well and I don't really see people dangerously blowing through intersections. Cyclists and pedestrians in particular can be too careful as they often stop and wait for a car to go by even though the car is supposed to yield.
I'm all for letting them roll through stop signs and red lights as long as they pay attention and respect the yield rules.
The problem I have with this is that I have no idea whether any given intersection in town is going to have signs or not. I can make educated guesses that work well most of the time, but I'd prefer to make fewer guesses in traffic. If you don't have a yield sign, you have to look out for the gray backside of a yield sign for the road on the right. It may or may not be there. Depending on angle, position, background, weather, dirt, snow, ..., it can be hard to spot.
I don't know how much people pay attention. I get the impression that locals simply memorize each intersection. This can lead to some interesting scenes when the signs and rules are changed.
When you're in a new place, well, you're stuck scanning for the backsides of yield signs again. I find it rather stressful; it'd be nicer to be able to fully focus on the traffic and lanes & route ahead.
Here's one example. The street on the right looks smaller than the road ahead, so you can make the educated guess that they have to yield. And indeed they do -- you find the triangle sign on the lamp post just beyond the crosswalk.
https://www.google.com/maps/@62.2487495,25.7497856,3a,75y,13...
Another small street on the right. You can, again, guess that they have the yield sign, but you cannot see it until you're very close to the intersection as the brick building is blocking the view. It's a 40kph road where locals often go a little faster. At that speed, you may kinda have to slam the brakes to yield to sudden incoming traffic. If you're not local, do you drive the speed limit and trust your instinct, or do you brake after every block to figure out who's going to yield?
https://www.google.com/maps/@62.3236831,27.8983542,3a,75y,14...
Same town, different street. The stubby little street on the right might look like a small parking lot, but it's not. And they have no yield sign. Even the locals regularly fail to yield around here. Luckily the speed limit here is only 20kph so it's not particularly dangerous. Shame that's not true of all the intersections that lack the signs where you'd expect them to be.
https://www.google.com/maps/@62.3143408,27.8768849,3a,75y,32...
In Denmark the minor/major road is marked using "yield" signs drawn on the road:
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.6869206,12.4609582,3a,75y,26...
As it also in in Britain:
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.402404,-2.1741907,3a,75y,230...
or like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4030975,-2.1705867,3a,75y,34...
From memory, that's also the case in several other European countries.
I guess the reason we don't rely on road marks so much is that they're covered by snow & ice half the year. That plus frost heaving & constant snow plowing & studded tyres are very effective at erasing the road markings.
Idaho stopping is really just a hacky manual substitute for electric assist and automatic stabilization wheels. It's one that has an unfortunate slippery slope built into it.
It separates bike traffic from car traffic.
I had a fairly long commute that was punctuated by a set of lights. If I rode up to the red and waited for the green, I ended up passing and getting passed by countless numbers of the same set of cars during this stretch of road. If I blew the red, and got ahead of the pack of cars, I exposed myself to 1/10 the number of collision instances.
Bicycles are in a 3rd place between motor vehicles and pedestrians, of course they can transition between modes in ways that cars or pedestrians cannot. So can people on skateboards, skates and the myriad of personal electric vehicles.
I am extremely cognizant of how I operate a bicycle around pedestrians, the onus should be on the person operating the dangerous device in the interaction.
Cars don't own the road. Look at the history of jay walking and how the person car dynamic has changed over time.
They require no license to ride, they are easily modifiable to go above the recommended speed, and seem to attract owners who have no safety concerns in their head at all (not wearing proper gear, having no clue how to operate in traffic, etc)... most often they become the vehicle of choice for people who have had their licenses taken away due to DUI charges.
While every group (drivers, cyclists, etc) have things people can point to and complain about I've never seen a group so disrespectful of others on the road, so clueless to their surroundings, and have as little grasp of basic safety as the majority of e-bike users on the road.
My opinion is if it is powered by anything other than your own legs it should be classified the same as a moped and require insurance, some sort of training and licensing to be allowed on the road.
As a former rider of a "Vespa ebike" I find that it also seem much safer as a rider than a regular bicycle because I could most keep up with traffic and I could easily monitor traffic around me because I wasn't pedaling and switching gears and what have you.
Personally I feel the ebike, Vespa like or otherwise, is the future of city transportation. It's energy efficient, sweat free and all that most single occupancy vehicle drivers need to go about their daily tasks. If most people started riding them they would instantly become much safer as well.
Nice :).
"[..] the street finds its own uses for things." -- Gibson
Also, if you want to share the road that goes both ways. If I have to obey the laws that keep everyone safe so should you.
In the meantime though, obey the laws of the road or stay off it.
So, you're entitled to bend the rules, so long as enough other people are with you? Why don't you extrapolate the Kantian Imperative on that one? This is precisely why we can't have nice things. I guess we should just give up on trash cans, and everyone should just throw everything in the street.
Rolling stops in cars still tend to approximate the effect of a complete stop. Rolling stops on bikes tend to approximate the effect of the stop sign not being there at all. It's two different cost/benefit situations producing two different outcomes.
By contrast, 5–10 miles/hour on a bike is about equally far from 0 and the 15 miles/hour the bike was traveling before.
The biggest difference though is that getting hit by a car doing a rolling stop will put you in the hospital and possibly kill you.
At least in SF, stop signs are proper optional. I see cars running them every day. It's just that when you see a car go 40 mph (5 over) and then slow down to 10 mph when it goes through it looks like it nearly stopped. When a cyclist goes from 15 mph to 10 mph it looks like he didn't do shit.
When I bicycle I stop fully at stop signs because I do it partly for exercise and I like practising the track stand, but I see people go through every day on my commute. If I were to bike in a hurry, I could see myself doing the slow down and treat-stop-as-yield.
Mostly there's a lot of bullshit on this topic, I've noticed. Somehow if you talk to drivers, they'll say things like "SF drivers don't know how to drive. They won't even see you before they go through a stop sign." then when the topic becomes cyclists v. drivers the narrative changes to how drivers turn into ever-correct rule followers. That seems to me that people are making an in-group v out-group distinction when they describe this, and appropriately changing their language.
I've got to tell you, I've seen it, and this "approximate the effect of a complete stop" is bullshit. Well, don't believe me, watch the video or wait at a busy trafficked intersection. (You can find good ones on the streets off Lincoln in the Sunset - heavily stop-signed and frequently violated)
Yes. There are drivers who never drive on freeways, and in my experience, they always come to a complete stop. My ex was one such driver for awhile.
change their commute route to only include very low traffic (ie "safe") roads, and take that route every day, every week for a few months (it was a slow "grinding" process). Let's see then if they still continue to make a full stop as before for every one of those 20 new full STOP intersections...
Even in this situation, my experience is that conscientious automobile drivers still approximate the effect of a full stop. There are some idiot automobile drivers who don't approximate the effect of a full stop, just as there are idiot bike riders. The cost-benefit conditions are simply different, and bicycle "momentum hacking" tends to take people far away from what a careful car driver would be doing.
The fact that you'd entertain such a thought about residential drivers makes me question your conscientiousness.
A lot of traffic codes have specific rules and allowances for bicycles. They're allowed on the road but without a lot of the normal requirements (license plates, registration, insurance, etc). Segway (and other similar new vehicles) have no such exception, but also aren't eligible for those things.
What I am getting at is, in some places, you could get a ticket for using a Segway on the sidewalk AND public road. Meaning it was essentially limited to private property only. That's a problem.
PS - Electric bikes kind of skirted around the law by looking and acting like a regular bicycle, and not exceeding their speed. But even that hasn't been without issues.
PPS - In some places Segways are legal via exceptions made for electric wheelchairs on sidewalks.
[1] http://mynorthwest.com/977326/seattle-bikeshare-customer-hab...?
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...
I mean, it's not even subtle. A city where shitting on the sidewalk (actual human shit) is commonly accepted and even appreciated as part of the local color, but a battery-powered scooter is a public safety crisis that requires emergency regulation? Come on.
They are not small and demand a lot of space on a side-walk, unlike these 'dorky' scooters which share the same profile of a standard bike.
I think the problem with Segways isn't their size, its their difficulty of operation. People bumbling around on Segways is the problem, not their size. Their size isn't really any wider than a average person's shoulder width. The average male shoulder width is 18.5", Segway is 25", which coincidentally is the same width as the average bike handlebars. Meanwhile a bicycle is as long as an average human is tall.
The problem is that segways are wide, they take a lot of transverse space which is generally at a premium: at the scale of a street, length is infinite but width is limited.
Worse, they take that space very low on the ground which is more problematic: there are obstacles at ground-level which don't exist at handlebar-level and it's outside the normal field of vision.
> they carry momentum and cannot start or stop quickly, and they have a very wide turning radius so they can't maneuver around obstacles easily
That's an advantage for other people, because they can more easily estimate trajectories even not knowing the intents of the driver. There it helps a lot that bikes are familiar objects so people more or less know their range of behaviour.
I agree and disagree. Why are pedestrians so great? Because they're low speed, start and stop extraordinarily quickly, change direction extraordinarily easily, and two of them bumping into each other is extraordinarily unlikely to cause even the smallest amount of damage. Try to count the number of times you've seen two pedestrians do the dance trying to figure out who is going left and who is going right to pass each other... and then try to imagine a bike or scooter doing that. You can't, because they can't.
Segways almost can, though. They can stop hard and reverse direction very easily, then rotate on a dime.
Bike have a predictable momentum and direction, sure. But pedestrians don't, and pedestrians are used to having extraordinary flexibility when it comes to obstacle avoidance. If a pedestrian walks in front of a pedestrian, you stop and/or swerve and/or contort your body to get around them. If a pedestrian walks in front of a Segway, provided the Segway can't stop (which is unlikely), maybe they get bumped or knocked down, but the Segway would likely bounce back, meaning it stops moving forward. If a pedestrian walked in front of a bicycle, at least two people are likely to get extraordinarily injured. Even if the bike stopped in time, the biker has to secure themselves since they can't autobalance like a pedestrian or Segway.
Again, I think Segways get a bad rap because 1) they were new and expensive, so everyone wrote them off as self-indulgent and they never became common enough to shake that, and 2) many people using them don't know how to pilot them (Segway tours). Bikes and scooters are both far worse transport solutions for cities, and especially for sidewalks.
The company was certainly aware of it. Hence all their lobbying.
But they really don't fit well with roads, especially where there aren't bike lanes. And they're a poor fit for sidewalks, especially if you want to go faster than walking pace. (And, if you don't, I'm not sure what their point is.)
Of course they are motorized, so if there are special rules for slow, motorized bikes, then those should apply to segways.
Unless you specifically want to spell out that devices called segways are allowed and anything else isn't.
I just had a look. My average commute speed is 24kmh on an 8 speed bike. Segways have always looked a bit slow to me and their top speed is 20kmh from what I can find. I’m calling them way slower than a push bike.
In terms of sharing, too, I don't think it's a coincidence that the real ascension of bike and scooter shares is happening with smartphone penetration.
Correct. How are these scooters getting away with this though -- riding on the sidewalks that is.
Nearly half the scooters in San Francisco are being ridden on the sidewalks. I know cos I routinely get 'nearly run-over' by a hipster riding these on the sidewalk almost daily.
I'm not condoning their use on sidewalks but it's probably inevitable that they'll be ridden there if they're going to be used to any great degree.
For what its worth, dockless rental electric scooters are a completely different game than electric scooters (which came out a few years before the Segway). The (game changing) advantage is that once you finish the ride, you don't need to worry about keeping it with you securely.
Biking straight up SF hills in jeans without sweating is like having superpowers.
One downside (for SF at least) is the robust market for stolen bike parts.
Competitively they are highly advantaged by having the scooters absorb all the hate. The scooter companies ought to make sock puppet companies that dump electric hover boards all over SF.
Unfortunately, the named brand ones are ridiculously expensive (£12k+) and having ridden a couple of Chinese made motorcycles I'm disinclined to go for the cheaper ones (£3-5k). Especially when you consider that even if the fuel cost were completely free on the electric one it would take nearly 5+ years to get the money back given a named brand 125cc petrol scooter can be bought for next to nothing and will struggle to use more than £10 worth of fuel a week.
For me it would be an optimum balance of environmental consciousness and convenience though. I guess that is worth something.
https://www.bmw-motorrad.co.uk/en/models/urban_mobility/cevo...
I'm aware they aren't the same thing, but it's two wheels and an electric motor. They aren't that different.
Anyway, I just though someone might be interested in discussing the merits of electric scooters rather than arguing about how different the two types of scooter are.
> £12,350*
Uh, no.
It's puzzling how much more robust the ebike market is compared to the electric vespa market.
It isn't even a price issue, fancy ebikes are about the same cost. (The Genze is $3699). It doesn't seem to be regulation, you don't have to pass a bunch of tests or crash them to ship one like with a car.
Maybe the large number of bike part manufacturers and builders give it more sophisticated supply chain? I really don't know.
In California, mopeds can go 30 MPH (48.3km/h). I think it's 25 or 30 in most US states. The GenZe has 4 horsepower which is the CA limit (used to be 2) but some states only specify displacement as 49cc or less.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....
Mopeds are also allowed in bike lanes in CA, though police & cyclists don't seem to know this.
Moped laws around the US: https://www.mopedarmy.com/wiki/Moped_Laws:_United_States
edit: did some more research. US doesn't have the equivalent of a German Mofa (25km/h) only Mokick (45km/h) https://smartexpat.com/germany/how-to-guides/transport/drivi...
Though the stand-up scooters in CA do happen to have a 15 MPH limit.
They are dangerous and reckless on sidewalks. Sidewalks are used by all sorts of people: from healthy adults to a wide spectrum of mobility, sensorily and developmentally impaired people.
Case in point: handicapped folks, elderly, and children.
A 75 year old woman out walking her dog is unlikely to have the situational awareness (visual, audio, and cognitive degeneration) nor the quickness of reflexes to respond to scooters on sidewalks.
A collision between a 170lb male on a scooter going 10mph and a 130lb elderly person is going to lead to extensive injury, potentially life threatening, injury to the adult.
A pelvic fracture is not an uncommon injury from falls in elderly and is associated with a notable increase in probability of death.
Scooters on sidewalks are dangerous and should be immediately banned.
In all cases it is the responsibility of everybody using the footpath to ensure they don't put others at risk.
Runners should feel free to use the footpath as part of their exercise - but they shouldn't run blindly around corners. I feel the same way about scooters - ride on the footpath all you like, but slow right down around other pedestrians or blind spots so that people both feel safe and are safe.
The kicker: he had two more Birds stacked sideways on it, sticking out a couple of feet on both sides.
Had I not seen him first and jumped out of tbe way, I would have had broken fibulas, ankles, or both.
And then what? The dude would just flee the scene. Bird wouldn't take any responsibility, either. I'd be screwed.
I read the HN article last week about charging these (where they pay you to collect scooters and you charge them over night), so I recently signed up to become a charger for Bird scooters. When I first opened up the app to search for ones to charge it showed dozens of these things[1] that had gone missing in the Tenderloin. I went searching for some yesterday and after being unable to locate about 5 in a row, I saw two homeless guys dissecting one. The electronics were hanging out and they had screw drivers in hand.
Of course I didn't confront them, and I went home empty handed.
[1] Yesterday I counted ~33 that had gone missing in the Tenderloin within the past two weeks. To put this in perspective, there are only about 75 - 100 of them in the entirety of SF right now if you open up the Bird app.
I guess the people who hate on these scooters are the ones who can't find one that has enough battery or isn't "offline" for some reason.
The author outlined the problem with sharing the roads with bikes:
Scooters accelerate out of a stop faster than bicycles, but the top speed of most scooters is below that of all but the slowest bikes. So if you come out of a stop next to a cyclist, you immediately lurch forward and pass them, only to watch them pass you five seconds later. And it is annoying to pass someone in the bike lane.
Places where all cyclists are fast are usually just places where biking is so uncomfortable/unsafe that only highly skilled and confident riders do it. Meanwhile you look at Amsterdam and these scooters would be faster than average there in the bike paths.
In the long run, it seems that ownership is moving towards the cloud model. The same arguments for virtual machines in a server can be used for vehicles and, likely, many other types of physical items. There is no doubt that a pool of 100 scooters serving 1000 people is better for the environment than 1000 under-utilized scooters.
EDIT: I meant cars ;-) but it’s so funny, I just leave it as is
I agree - while there have been cat rentals and cat coffee shops, they haven't really taken off like this.
;-)
When I get out of work and get into my car, it's like I'm sort of almost home already. Driving sucks in traffic, but I'm in my own, fairly comfortable space I've customized to my liking that I'm in complete control of. When I take any kind of transit, I'm not done with my day until I'm literally all the way back to my own apartment. Additionally, I actually quite like driving when traffic isn't bad.
I'd much rather sit in traffic in my own car than on any kind of public transit. That statement holds until the transit option cuts my commute time by better than 2 to 1. The reality is (at least here in Los Angeles) that taking public transit usually doubles the travel time vs a car. I don't see this changing.
Id much rather sit in traffic in my own car than on any kind of public transit.
I don't know how long it'll last, but normal people can even make money charging them. It's got me considering spending $200 on my own scooter, though I think I'll just use the service until I'm ready to bite that bullet.
Apparently there is value in stealing them to harvest the batteries.
Who wants to own something and have another thing you have to worry about and take everywhere with you? When you can just join an app, have no up front cost and dump it on the street for the next person? That factor of convenience beats the shit out of ownership.
Regarding handling - do you think someone with no experience riding a bike can 'effortlessly ride 10 miles on convoluted paths without touching the handlebars' or did it take you years of riding experience to get that good? So if you spent that same amount of time riding an e-scooter do you think you'd have handling down to an art as well? I think you would, and how it handles around corners wouldn't even be a consideration.
However theres a halo effect at play here which is good news: more people who are using these services who have never used an e-bike or boosted board before after seeing the benefits are now more likely to owning them. Or maybe even just buying their own Xiamoi E-scooter.
The exercise benefits of both are... questionable. Even just cycling as a commuter on a regular bike isn't very intense exercise, and on an ebike it just seems like you're pretending to pedal. I can't imagine it has much health benefit aside from being better than sitting in a car.
US roads were made for cars. That’s just the honest truth. Cities need to do more than just toss a bike lane on the side of the road and say they are “bike friendly”. That’s not a solution, that’s some half-assed attempt by officials to look like they give a damn.
Sharrows, on the other hand, are largely slaps in the face. They're put on slow residential roads where I was perfectly fine riding anyways. Or they're half-assed "look we support bikes" icons slapped right in the door zone onto a stretch of potholes that cars run at 45mph. (My personal favorite is when a perfectly nice marked lane dumps you into sharrows right before a confusing intersection.)
Agreed that sharrows are essentially useless though. It's not that the idea of mixing traffic has to be bad, but it only works if you have serious traffic calming measures that pretty much force drivers to slow down and drive more safely. Most of the time when sharrows go down, there's absolutely nothing functional changed about a car-dominant street.
Hmm, very fair point. I admit that, biking support overall being what it is, I'm mostly stuck on making things better for those who already bike (e.g., people like me, obviously). Expanding ridership to other groups seems like another level entirely most of the time, although it would be great! I should try to keep that aspect in mind more.
The dorks are mostly seen on electric unicycles.
my bike was stolen a couple years ago, shifting me to lyft/uber as a result, but lately i've become less enthusiastic about those services.
anyone have suggestions on electric scooter or electric bike models to buy? ideally something light (and possibly foldable) for shorter trips (within 3-5 miles) and last mile connections off public transportation.
However, they're almost certainly more dangerous, and a higher learning curve (though I hadn't skateboarded much before getting one). Just watch out for Muni tracks, gravel, wet roads (especially on metal), and potholes.
I'm still waiting for mine, but I used a kickboard (3-wheeled non electric scooter) for commuting to school years ago and it's so much more stable than 2 wheeled scooters and much more fun to drive.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Electric-long-range-Fold-n-Carry-Ultr...
E-Bike has huge range and make riding the bike at speeds up to 30km/h a breeze.
Mounting the scooter is easier, they are cheaper (thus theoretically better suited to this sort of grab one and drop it wherever model), they are lighter (which is maybe more important for scenarios where you own it rather than grab-n-go), they are easier to maneuver at very low speeds, and they don't require that you know how to ride a bike.
E-bikes win on another set of axes: they are more comfortable for longer rides, they are faster, they have greater range, they are more maneuverable at higher speeds.
I've taken the Jump bike several times and it usually takes just under 15 min to go the same route for only $2
Faster and cheaper wins! :)
As it is, as an NYC resident, I have neither Jump bikes nor shareable electric scooters, so my personal experience is limited. I had no idea that Jump bikes were so cheap -- the cheapest you can get here is the CitiBike, which is non-electric and has a half-hour ride for $3 (cheaper as you get memberships and rides in bulk, but that complex pricing is one of the things that makes it annoying).
Do you know how much of the Jump price is them burning VC money and passing the savings on to you? It seems like the depreciation on the bike is in excess of that amount.
The Ford GoBike which I think it the same program as the CitiBike is rolling out electric assist bikes now too which I believe is $3 for a 30 min ride for the electric. $2 for normal
The 2000s New York decision to put bike lanes all over the place made the city less livable. For example, Hudson St went from three or four lanes of one-way traffic moving predictably, to two lanes of one-way traffic going a predictable speed and a parallel roadway of bicycles moving at unpredictable speeds and behaving in ways to preserve their momentum.
In an environment where the healthy people you see on bikes could have walked where they were going, or taken the subway (pre-Cuomo MTA), they weren't doing anything virtuous compared to all of the other car-less New Yorkers they were shouting at whenever they breezed through an intersection.
Biking in New York was recreation when the subways worked, and fun that made sense on places like the long bike paths without pedestrian cross traffic. Intuitively, these electric scooters would not be the same nuisance to people trying to walk somewhere, or just going out for a stroll. They start from a stop more quickly so people don't try to unsafely preserve their momentum, and their lower cruising speed would tend to allow them to avoid obstacles more easily.
<end rant>
I know I sound like the people in this "Hark! A Vagrant"[1], but bike lanes for the recreation of a small group of people really did make walking around quiet neighborhoods in New York less peaceful and enjoyable. These scooters don't at all sound like they would have the same impact.
Another slight advantage is lower weight (obstacles), though in practice this is unlikely to be a major issue.
Otherwise I agree that an e-bike is superior. I prefer the GoBike e-bikes to Lime/Bird.
https://qz.com/1257198/xiaomi-makes-the-bird-and-spin-scoote...
Most batteries alone are $150-400.
Buying a cheap generic spec ebike is around $900-$1400
But can they really do that? Another VC-subsidized startup can then come in and apply the same strategy.
Some can.
Bicycle: UX win.
These are really only intended for trips of a few miles where battery life isn't really a concern. If you want a longer trip then yes a bike is probably a better idea.
However, I don't think everyone can do this. I suggest to my friends, equally endowed with a beerly-gait as I, to get into it to .. but nope. City slickers got no time to ride no bicycle, no 2 or 4 or 10 km's.
Pity really, because it absolutely improves life quality, imho.
limebike scooters' bells are on a flimsy spring so most of the time theyre broken. the bell is pretty useful for alerting walkers ahead of you of your presence without having to yell.
the bird scooters are also able to 'chirp' to help locate them - i've heard limebikes do the same but i have not been able to find that feature in their app.
overall i dont think this is an issue of a winner take all market - uber and lyft seem to live in harmony and i take whichever is cheaper. for scooters, i'd just take whichever one is closer, there is no brand loyalty or much differentiation but there's room for multiple players atm.
If the scooter companies can get bought by Uber or Lyft, these ride sharing services could also take on the responsibility of distributing these scooters across the city and make them highly available. That would compliment their ride sharing service tho.
Just to clarify, you're not supposed to ride these on sidewalks in most (all?) places (though mixed-use paths are probably ok)
I think they're imagining that there will be geographic network effects - "my city is full of CompanyX scooters, so I'll use their app". I don't know though, seems a bit dubious.
Also I seriously doubt they are anywhere near to making even a vague profit. They're charging maybe 3x as much per ride compared to bikes, but the scooters must be easily 10x more expensive and they have to pay people to charge them.
I suspect that $5 might start shrinking if they stick around. It seems just a touch generous currently. I guess it depends how many bored kids with bikes are available and willing to do the work.
Worse for the scooter startups is that they can go far enough to cause loss, but can't go so far as to link up two essentially different geographic zones. Thus no demand side market balancing like Uber and Lyft. They're limited to small cities in the sunshine.
The people driving around and getting paid big bucks to recharge them are using...... cars.
Which is why the only play for the scooter companies is to be acquired by Uber or Lyft. Which is unfortunate because there is no original technology in these scooters. Xaiomi will sell the m365 to whoever wants to buy one. When two Chinese companies are selling the scooters, their price will halve or more, and anyone who finds himself using a scooter daily will buy one...... for $200.
I would think that Dara is on a Boeing Business Jet with Lei Jun right now toasting their exclusive deal on the next million commodity scooters at a bargain basement price.
Seems like a relatively simple problem to solve (sure, still a few months of dev time with several months of manufacturing lag, but you'll do it if it's central to your business).
Also, you would need to pay some sort of rent on those docks, connect them to electricity and all that. You could use that money instead to just buy more scooters.
Injury from bicycle crashes is one thing, but the biggest threat to scooters and cyclists in the US comes from inattentive or aggressive drivers.
Are the pavements in Holland more forgiving when someone's head hits them at ~8 m/s?
"Never have I heard of a friend or family member falling from their bike with any injury on the head; A broken arm at worst."
Well, I see your anecdote and I raise you with my own: I once fell of my bike at probably around 30km/h, breaking my collarbone. Additionally my helmeted head hit the raised pavement stone hard enough to leave a big dent in my helmet. I'm very glad that it didn't have the opportunity to leave the same dent in my head.
Essentially no one who isn't a young child wears a helmet in Amsterdam. (And often not even them. You see small kids propped up on handlebars all the time.)
In Central Copenhagen on the other hand, which would seem to have almost as good biking infrastructure as Amsterdam, a lot of people do wear helmets. It's still the minority--maybe 25%--but it's definitely not at all unusual.
Stuck in traffic? Get off and push it along the sidewalk. Park ANYWHERE. Swerve and weave. So much fun.
I guess it simplifies the design by not having the pedals, chain, gears, etc...; but you have the tradeoff of not getting that 100W of input from the rider to extend the battery range.
This jab at cyclists should be properly taken as representing solely the author's attitude in the role of cyclist.
A scooter rider who is late would have motivation to break the rules.
All wheeled vehicles, regardless of whether they are motorized, as well as pedestrians, break the rules from time to time.
It's a shame no startup can disrupt the outdated tech that is traffic lights, which require people to stop, press a button and wait a minute in an intersection with no traffic going the way they're about to cross.
Actually sensible, and legal in Idaho:
This technology already exists, city planners are the ones not rolling it out.
Many intersections in Vancouver, and its suburbs are pedestrian-controlled. If you push the crossing button, and there is no traffic, the light will immediately turn red, and let you cross.
You apparently don't live in an eastern US city like Boston or NY where people pretty routinely cross against the light if no one is coming (or even if they are) :-)
maybe i didn't read carefully, but i didn't catch in the article what he proposes is unfortunate about it.
> can they succeed despite their essential dorkiness?
wait ... what?!?
a) dorkiness
b) essential dorkiness?
wow. just wow. it doesn't seem like a clickbait-y sensationalist subtitle. it seems like the author really means it. omg, am i a dork?? i love these scooters. it never occurred to me in the slightest that they are dorky. and in fact, i see all kinds of beautiful people (and normal people) riding them. is this maybe an east coast / west coast thing? Maybe the author cares about presenting a certain adult image, and the scooter makes him feel childish, since yes, they are fun to ride. That's what makes me think it's coastal.
I love how the photo shows folks riding without helmets. AFAIK all the scooter companies make clear you must use a helmet (I don't). At least in the photo they are in the bike lane and not the sidewalk.
> Doesn’t riding in the bike lane annoy cyclists? Yes, of course. Cyclists are annoyed by most stimuli.
lol
It might be a little bit east coast / west coast and a little bit of a DC thing. People in DC seem to take themselves a bit too seriously, so looking silly during your commute, where you might be seen by coworkers, is maybe more undesirable here than elsewhere.
This isn't a dig against DC. I live here and love it. I also enjoy the scooters.
The first step is acceptance.
These electric commuter things are pretty cool though from getting to point A-Point B efficiently. (Moreso than the electric skateboards cropping up)
> terrorizing its wretched NIMBYs
C'mon with that.
> I pushed down the throttle and lurched forward. I released it and the scooter stopped, nearly throwing me off. As I tried to figure out my balance, a teenager ran up to the scooter next to mine, activated it, and drove away. I had never felt so old.
This is a young person's service. No helmets or elbow pads.
> It’s best ridden with one leg on the platform and the other hanging off the side for emergency braking, or fleeing.
So it's dangerous.
> I was more likely to respect traffic laws on a scooter than on a bike, because I wasn’t as worried about conserving my momentum on a scooter.
Author is an admitted scofflaw.
Folks, momentum is the killer. It's velocity squared, so half as fast is one quarter as much "oompf" to cause injury or death. I bike (I don't own a car) and it always cheeses me off to see cyclists pulling dumb stunts in traffic.
These eletric scooters are mostly a great idea. It's that margin of failure modes that we have to watch. People being people there are going to be riders who ride like idiots and crash into people, there are going to be people who park them in stupid places. There are already "turf wars" starting among the folks who collect and charge them at night.
This article is a puff piece.
I personally feel like the dork-factor on a Segway comes from it being ridden with both feet facing forward. It gives the ride an alien-like hovering quality.
On the other hand, I don’t judge people on skateboards, particularly because I’m used to the sideways stance. Scooters are somewhere in the middle, but at the very least they don’t make you look like someone from outer space.