Scooter Madness | Hacker News Reader

Scooter Madness

nytimes.com

31 pointsschintan48 comments

> Last month, the inevitable happened: Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed, and we are calling on Mayor David Briley and the Metro Council to ban them from the streets immediately,” the petition reads, arguing that Mr. Gaulke should be “the last victim of an epidemic that the e-scooter companies and local government both refuse to acknowledge.”

Imagine being gaslighted by the auto industry so hard that you think scooters are the problem here, not the car that actually hit and killed someone.

All of the problems that are discussed in this article are artifacts of a culture and cities designed around cars, period.

You've pointed out that the omnipresence and logistics of cars are fundamental to entire cultures and cities, and yet when something new is introduced that clashes with that, you're claiming that the people calling for the revocation of the new thing are gaslighted by "proponents" of the established thing - the thing that is cemented into the design of the world already. Given the options to roll back the scooters or redesign a part of civilization, though the latter may be an ideal, surely the parents of the dead calling for the former are not being unreasonable, and even more surely are not "gaslighted"?

And it wasn't the car, either. IT WAS THE DRIVER CONTROLLING THE CAR. We've been brainwashed so hard, people can't even use language to describe what actually happened, lest responsibility fall on the individual.

It wasn't the driver of the car, either.

It was the guy on the scooter that made an illegal turn in front of the SUV, disregarding traffic laws put into place precisely to prevent the type of accident that occurred.

> people can't even use language to describe what actually happened

This is a good point, although I'm not sure sure I agree with the cause or motive. But if one starts paying very close attention to the general nature and specific wording used in forum conversations, I think it starts to become clear that very often participants believe they are discussing "just the facts", when in reality they are often discussing things in the form of a story, or a particular perspective which usually only takes into consideration a subset of all the relevant facts.

In this case, new technology has been broadly deployed into society without corresponding training, and a young man has ended up dead. It seems unlikely the entirety of the fault rests in one place, but rather could plausibly be attributed to any number of things that had they been done differently, the gut-wrenching emotional pain this family has to live with for the rest of their life could have been avoided.

I believe if each of us made a serious effort to be more mindful of our thoughts and words, we could perhaps move closer to a society where these realities can be discussed in a more objective manner, and we could enjoy both the advancements of technology, while increasing the likelihood that everyone gets home to their loved ones at the end of the day.

And you are so incapable of parsing basic human communication that you don’t understand the use of simple metonymy.

Imagine being gaslighted by the scooter industry so hard you think that cars are the problem here, not the scooter rider that made an illegal turn in front of an SUV which tried but failed to break in time to avoid hitting him.

https://www.wsmv.com/news/bird-responds-after-scooter-rider-... https://www.chattanoogan.com/2019/5/20/390590/Brady-Gaulke-D...

All of the problems with scooters are artifacts of a startup culture that disregards safety, and business plans designed around scale, period. [https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/25/18197713/the-inventor-rev...]

Where do you draw the line between individual responsibility and what businesses should shoulder as far as above and beyond safety measures?

I don't necessarily have an answer, but saying scooter companies are responsible for someone's death in the same comment as you mention an illegal uturn seems contradictory to me.

That second part was a separate paragraph because it was a separate response to a different part of the comment I was responding to. It wasn't directly related to my comments on the responsibility of the scooter rider.

Imagine being gaslighted by the gun industry so hard you think that neither cars, nor scooters kill people. People kill people.

Cars obviously are the problem here. Had the SUV driver been riding a motorcycle, there is a high probability the scooter rider would be alive. But instead of saying to car drivers, "you are operating the least-forgiving vehicle, therefore you will bear the most burden of responsibility", we say, "ran over a bike because your were texting? Here's a $120 ticket, pay more attention next time."

SUVs generally are more dangerous to the other parties in a collision.

But in this case the scooter rider suffered fatal head injuries because he wasn't wearing a helmet. He would have still suffered fatal head injuries no matter what vehicle hit him since it wasn't the size of the vehicle that mattered here; what mattered was that he fell off his scooter and hit his head.

>not the scooter rider that made an illegal turn in front of an SUV which tried but failed to break in time to avoid hitting him

I rented a Lime S scooter in Louisville, Kentucky this weekend. It became apparent after about a block that the brake was completely non-functional. I parked the scooter, ended the ride, and reported that it had a defective brake...but yet it remained available for rent in the Lime app anyway. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The more I think about it, the more I regret not tossing the scooter into the nearest dumpster after the ride was over and the parking photo was submitted.

SUVs are more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists (and scooter riders) than sedans. If you are using a tool that endangers everyone around you then you bear partial responsibility for increasing the latent risk of transportation even if you’re not the proximate cause of a given accident.

True, but in this case the scooter rider would have died whatever vehicle hit him--truck, SUV, sedan, or motorcycle.

Scooters and cars are not compatible on the same roads. Whoever wants to risk their life could drive these scooters. However, when a company makes scooters widely available and with no barriers (e.g. no scooter licence) the perceived risk lowers as in "everybody does it, must be ok" or "if it's legal it's safe" type of judgement.

Banning scooters is not a smart idea but the entry level should be stepped up a few notches. Maybe operating one should require some safety lessons. Or maybe a licence that can be lost as incentive to not do stupid things.

The alternative is to not do anything and learn from accidents and deaths of others. This is the long and painful road.

The scooters are the problems because they do not obey the traffic laws.

Atlanta just created scooter ordinances and the local news is showing announcements from APD with the new regulations. No riding on sidewalks or leaving scooters on sidewalks. You must act like a car and move with the flow of traffic like a car. Fines will be given out.

I used to walk over abandoned scooters on my commute every day when I worked downtown.

I'm just going to take a moment to remark how impressive it is that automakers have achieved this, that the roads are owned by cars and collisions are framed to be the fault of whoever was not in the car that shouldn't be on the road. Cars were invented first, and then Jaywalking (as a crime) was invented second.

In theory, you should evaluate these programs (and other programs like helmet laws) against the risk posed by cars, but unfortunately, when people take bicycles or scooters instead of cars, it frees up space on the road for more cars.

I don't have a particular angle here, I wish we could redesign our cities to accommodate better modes of transportation but that's expensive and there's little political will for it.

It's also amazing to read this piece in the same newspaper that has published perhaps thousands of articles about the (very real) threat of climate change.

The solution is to ban 30 pound scooters, which have zero point emissions, in favor of multi-ton cars, which carry around an entire internal-combustion rig, spewing CO2 out the entire way?

Talk about bizarre.

> which have zero point emissions

It's better to be precise here: "whose contribution to emissions is an order of magnitude lower than cars."

And just last Friday in my walk home, two young gentlemen on scooters on the sidewalk, riding in the direction I was walking, passed by me at 20 mph, on my left, just as I was stepping left around something in my path and I came very close to being hit. Had I stepped a second earlier I could have been severely injured, even killed.

I've been walking to/from work for 23 years, and I've never felt less safe on the sidewalk. I abhor these scooters because of how the users of them disregard the safety of pedestrians.

Scooters are limited to 15mph typically.

It's an easy fix - just add bike lanes and bike/scooter racks.

The benefits of scooters are many: a single lane can accommodate many more scooters than cars. less emissions. faster than public for 1-3 miles. It's worth accommodating scooters.

Do you think it's a good idea to mix bicycles and scooters?

I ride my bike to work, and generally I don't have any issues with scooterers as long as they follow the same rules bikers do. The less experienced ones will always be a problem, as well as intoxicated riders, but that's true for any mode of transit. Safety should come first.

Are there any reasons it might not be a good idea for the two to use the same paths/roadways? Or better alternatives that are currently available?

Better alternatives for now, Im not sure to be honest. I just feel it is much easier or more tempting to go fast on a scooter. Since one doesn’t have to pedal and put in physical effort, it is tempting to always go fast (or faster) as opposed to naturally go with the flow. And it doesn’t help that electric scooters drain by distance when speed is variable or the difference is insignificant. Why would one wait behind a cyclist when they can quickly accelerate and pass. At least some would be tempted. This creates some kind of traffic mismatch and more collisions are likely, I think. Im sure some rules and common sense would eventually ensue. Learning from mistakes. Or maybe a top speed could level the traffic off. Or maybe even some sort of light “licence”. I hear that in Germany one is required for cyclists and thats a good way to ensure some responsibility or better aquitance with the rules.

Maybe I’m wrong. I am not certain of anything but electric scooters seem to me like a good and clean way of transportation. I feel that I’d like to see fewer cars as well. I imagine cleaner air, etc. We’d be all better off with all kinds of development in light and efficient transportation. We seem to be stuck with large and energy inneficient stuck in the past transportation. Seems inevitable a change will come along.

Rental scooters are speed limited to about 15mph, the speed of a fast-ish bicyclist, and they don't go up hills very well. So it's the same dynamic as fast and slow cyclists today in the bike lane.

> less emissions

Are you sure? Accounting for the fact that drivers pick them up with a car, drive them home, charge them, and then drive them again to a new location? And the fact that they can have as little as a 6 month life because of wear and tear?

Than a taxi? Definitely. A taxi also has to drive to pick you up and drive around to wait for more passenger.

Than public? it's a tossup.

As for linespan, the first scooter rollout used consumer grade scooters. Commercial scooters are just rolling out: https://www.bird.co/zero/

This doesn't seem like a very well-written article to me. The main claim is that scooters are dangerous, but since some trips on scooters are replacing trips in other forms of transportation like riding a car or bicycle, you should really be comparing to the dangers of using a car or bicycle. This just has a few anecdotes of people dying on a scooter.

> Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed, and we are calling on Mayor David Briley and the Metro Council to ban them from the streets immediately,” the petition reads, arguing that Mr. Gaulke should be “the last victim of an epidemic that the e-scooter companies and local government both refuse to acknowledge.”

A much more sane response would be to acknowledge the personal responsibility of a single individual who chose to take risks, and suffered the consequences.

Personal e-vehicles are one of the rays of hope in the fight against climate change - getting people out of cars, reducing congestion / load on transit. It is the most shortsighted thing to try and ban them.

My primary issues with dockless scooters are these:

1. Solid tires are awful. Harsh ride, unsafe/twitchy as hell on even slightly rough roads, and they don't inspire confidence for handling.

2. Motors that need to be kick-started in order to have enough torque to work are incredibly frustrating to use and don't have enough acceleration to get out of trouble.

Check out the Boosted Rev...

for $1600, i'll just craiglist myself a 49cc scooter if i want a not-bicycle to get around on. 90+mpg, 30mph top speed, no special insurance or licenses needed, you can park it on the sidewalk, and (in my city) use the bike lanes. And it even carries groceries!

> And while there is no question that this country needs a micro-mobility revolution,

Is there no question? Maybe we need to build fewer car dependent neighborhoods. Maybe the revolution is called "walking".

The article starts from a position that we have giant hunks of metal going at high speeds and anything that stands in their path must be banned or be destroyed. But car to pedestrian deaths happen with or without scooters. So why is there no talk of getting rid of the cars? Or at least creating a culture where drivers are more careful.

Having just gotten back from Nashville, their implementation is not really working. The sidewalks are now stressful to walk on as scooters fly above 20 MPH in all directions, with the rider often yelling "Sorry! I don't know how to drive this thing."

We are so violently opposed to car alternatives, it makes me wonder what other better worlds are within reach that we simply can’t or refuse to see

I think that's a mischaracterization of the argument here, though. The point is that riders of these things are causing novel hazards to the people around them without any sort of mitigating factors like licensure or taxation. I know I feel pretty mad when someone zips by me on the sidewalk while I'm walking my (small) dog, and that anger goes mostly to the scooter company that is enabling an idiot. If, in the end, this is a stepping stone to lower pollution, great, but that doesn't mean there aren't any problems with it because it is the lesser of two evils. This is all to say that I, a real genuine person, am not upset with the Advent of scooters because they are competing with cars; it's for completely different reasons.

Show me the statistics on fatalities per capita per mile traveled on scooters, vs in cars and I'll start taking the anecdotes a little more seriously. (I think I know how those stats will look). I don't for one second believe that this outrage is about the safety of others. It's about people feeling uncomfortable and inconvenienced by something new and strange to them.

Scooters are very progressive for cities. I'm excited for anything that is quiet, efficient, and possibly takes cars off the road. Their popularity speaks for itself, but the nimbyism around them really is insufferable. People want to ban anything new that they don't themselves benefit from (gasp).

It's really gross that people think that they and their preferred mode of transport own the place. We need to learn to co-exist and be flexible about our shared spaces while the cities evolve (at a slower pace) to support us and technology better. Just be as respectful as possible and don't try to scare the bejeezus out of the grannies in the meantime.

So there were three deaths for who knows how many rides. How does this compare with bikes and cars? Surely some people die using those or any other means of transport, including walking.

Here in Chicago, we just started a pilot program of the scooters throughout certain parts of the city this past Saturday [1]. I think that's the right approach to all this. Do a test run with a handful of companies (there is 10 companies here in this trial), and get the data to see how they should move forward. They have pretty strict guidelines on the pilot program, as well. I'm very curious to see how it all goes, and what happens next with them.

[1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-biz-scooter-...

From TFA:

> Less than 1 percent of the injured riders were wearing helmets.

I'm not sure why this statistic was included. All it could demonstrate is "people more likely to wear helmets are less likely to be injured". IE: cautious people are cautious.

This article reads like FUD. Along with scooters, people are currently free to go bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing, skin diving, and all other manner of activity which carries a higher-than-walking-around-the-block chance of injury. I don't want to live in a nerf-like society, where our available activities are dictated to us by...anyone.

Because all of the scooters, for liability reasons, implore you to wear a helmet. Nobody does. It’s a farce. They are unsafe.

The problem isn't scooters. Scooters have just exposed the problem: it's the cars.

There's a lot of victim blaming going on: we have giant weapons rolling around in broad daylight and when someone is killed by one we say nothing about the lumbering giants we allow to occupy so much of our space, not to mention time, money, and what little remains of the environment?

What misguided nonsense. The solution to cars crashing into scooters and bikes (no, cyclists aren't magically protected like she seems to think) isn't to ban them - it's to build proper bike lanes!

And why do people think scooters are street litter when cars aren't? Cars are left everywhere.

This is just classic luddism. "Roads were only for cars when I was young and that shall not change!"

>build proper bike lanes

Strongly agree.

>This is just classic luddism.

Strongly disagree. To me, the common "luddite" accusation often seems like a disconnected, elitist framing of issues that have important pragmatic angles.

There's always an adjustment period when transportation options begin to shift rapidly. If you go back and read newspapers from 100 years ago, you'll see people complaining about how cars are a menace and don't belong on the road with horses. Based off of some of the stories about how recklessly people handled some of those cars, you might even be inclined to agree with the anti-car crowd of that time!

However, just like with cars, banning scooters altogether is probably not going to be a widespread outcome. The reason scooters are so popular is because they actually do solve a crucial missing link for many cities, especially southern cities which often have terrible transit options and patchwork sidewalk and bike paths. Then you factor in the crazy summer heat and humidity, and it's no wonder that people are into the idea of a quick, breezy, ride that can navigate on either roads or sidewalks.

Here in Raleigh (which is a fraction of the size of Nashville to be fair ), there is a major problem of pedestrian unfriendliness the second you leave the downtown core or college campus area. The sidewalks are spread out thinly, often only existing along major arterial roads which are hard to cross, and then often only one sidewalk on either side. The back roads which would be safer to walk on in real cities normally (due to having less traffic), typically lack sidewalks at all. So you end up with your options being big empty, sidewalks with no shade or benches alongside cars going 50mph (on a road that doesn't usually have actual houses on it) or tighter roads with no sidewalk at all where people actually live (no benches, but more shade). It's a crappy time for a pedestrian either way and it's no surprise that most people don't want to make use of either option. However, I've found that on a scooter it's actually not terrible. The big empty sidewalks aren't so miserable because you get a breeze, and on the back-roads your scooter keeps up with cars better and has a light on it for visibility.

The issues with parking in bad places could be pretty easily solved with a some infrastructure for racks and geofencing to ensure riders end up there. The helmet issue can be changed by making helmets more portable and widely available. I bought a helmet for myself and my husband just to use the scooters. It's slightly inconvenient, but not a big deal. I can buckle it to my backpack. I'd prefer something that could fold up, or maybe a sharing model (leave a helmet / take a helmet at stations with scooters), but again I think that's something we can solve with regulation rather than outright banning. One thing I've wondered is if scooter companies could install a little camera facing the rider (or require you to take a pic with your phone camera) to verify a helmet is on before starting the ride using ML (like the "hotdog, not hotdog" joke app from the tv show "Silicon Valley").

A car driver was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. Lets ban cars.

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