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Comment by angryasian | Hacker News Reader

I personally wish there were more regulations on these. They are a complete nuisance. Santa Monica has tried to create more laws surrounding these, but the cops never enforce the rules.

Walking around sidewalks with younger kids is now dangerous from the groups of teenagers riding on these with little concern. In the same afternoon I saw a young kid get hit by a car for not following traffic rules. While its required to wear a helmet in SM no one was. These things are littered everywhere in paths just lying on the ground.

I get they are great and if we could rely on the people or the company to enforce the laws and make it a better experience I'd be in favor of them because they are convenient. I just don't believe that will happen.

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The sentiment of this argument parallels arguments made against cars when they started becoming common (suddenly over the place, dangerous, a nuisance). These complaints about scooters are a bit humerous because cars are still a nuisance, dangerous, littered all over. The difference is cars are a bigger danger, bigger nuisance, and if you think scooters are littered all over the place, have a look around at how much space all these cars are taking up! :-)

We can get through this transition period and put in place reasonable rules that yes will eventually become commonly complied with. License scooter drivers and or the scooters themselves. Reserve one street parking space per block for scooters and you probably could cram 20 of them in there. Lots of things can be done.

I think it depends on the culture of the area. For places where people are basically law-abiding, that might happen. Where I live in Oakland, CA, there's not a chance. I get run over by cyclists on the sidewalk almost daily and the scooters is just making it worse.

Which isn't to say I want to regulate them more. It's just sort of pointless in a city where the populace doesn't follow the existing rules, and there's no political will for law enforcement to do anything about it.

"I get run over by cyclists on the sidewalk almost daily"

Are you seriously saying that multiple times per week, you are knocked over by a bike?

Do you seriously think someone would exaggerate or use hyperbole here??!

This isn't even remotely close. The only way your car analogy would be relateable is if car drivers didn't follow the rules of the road and were free to drive on sidewalks and dump them in the front lawn of companies and personal homes.

They do this today along with a whole other host of bad behaviors. The difference is an enforcement regime.

I think you are suffering from a bit of car blindness: https://blog.sfgate.com/bicycle/2018/04/27/invisible-cars/

When cars first became available, the rules didn't exist and things like that did happen. That was my point. Here's an article I found with a bit of info and which makes the same analogy.

https://qz.com/1257151/this-electric-scooter-mayhem-sounds-j...

Also Bird has no intention to police their own users or help cities participate in the upside of their mess.

Have you ever tried one of these apps & scooters? They do tell you to drive well and give free helmets to users. They entirely have these intentions.

And should Hertz or Enterprise be required to operate a police force for their rental cars that their rental drivers can leave any 'ole place?

Wait, you saw a young kid get hit by a car and you're worried about scooters littering the sidewalks? How are those related?

these are both hazards that are brought from the lack of user policing done by Bird who doesn't care about the city or users as long as they can profit.

Couldn't you say the same thing about teenagers on skateboards, bikes or roller skates?

If you ever visit santa monica you will know exactly what I mean. The fact that anyone can pick one up and drop it off anywhere is much different. Skateboards and roller skates are anywhere near what these electric scooters are.

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