Why Do City Dwellers Love to Hate Scooters?

This article addresses (and quickly dismisses) only one of the common urban complaints: safety. It either ignores or misses the point of many of the other complaints.

Other inter-related issues:

* Sidewalks are not free for all parking spaces. They are public spaces with accessibility concerns and other users.

* Rental culture with no one "owning" responsibility. Apps blame users and indemnify themselves. Users aren't owners and don't have reasons to care.

* Safety. People barely know their local bicycle laws. The apps expect them to know them, have/wear helmets, but do practically nothing to educate their users. (Then don't think the responsibility is theirs.)

It's great to see e-scooters replace automobile trips, but safety and responsibility (for parking, for safety education) shouldn't be casually dismissed. It's another case where "move fast and break things" generally doesn't work that well when the things you might break are real world objects people care about like people's necks and wheelchair access.

These haven't come to my city (yet), but rentable bikes using a similar business model have. If the people using the scooters resemble the people using the bikes, then here's what gets me upset about them: the riders tend to be obnoxious. They ride in ways that are illegal and dangerous, and when they're done with the bikes, they just leave them wherever they happen to be -- very often in the middle of sidewalks.

Disclaimer: I ride a bicycle as my primary transportation, and I am the exact opposite of anti-bike.