Comment by testfoobar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by testfoobar | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Of all the public-goods usurped for private profit companies recently, I find the scooters to be the most intrusive.

Scooters on sidewalks are dangerous and should be banned.

We have explicit laws against skateboarding and riding bicycles on sidewalks in most communities. For bicyclists in San Francisco: "It’s illegal to ride on the sidewalk if you are over the age of 13. (SF Transportation Code Sec. 7.2.12)" https://sfbike.org/resources/bicycle-law/rules-of-the-road/

Yet, everyday you can find scooters on sidewalks wherever scooters are available. Toddlers use sidewalks - they walk in a random walk. Hearing impaired, sight-impaired, mobility-impaired people use sidewalks. Seniors use sidewalks. These people do not expect 180lb adults riding at 5 to 10mph right in their face. The kinetic energy and momentum at 10mph of an adult is considerable.

Falls for anybody can lead to bone fractures. Even more so for seniors. Hip fractures in particular can be fatal for seniors. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-hip-fractures-elderly...

Scooters should not be allowed on sidewalks.

Requiring scooters to ride in bike lanes seems an easy, obvious fix.

And, objectively, someone riding in a car is far more of a threat to pedestrian lives than someone riding on a scooter, even on the sidewalk. People traveling by scooters instead of cars is better in every way. Seems like a mistake to demonize scooters.

It's telling that we are so desensitized to how cars destroy our experience as a pedestrian that we barely notice it in comparison to someone leaving their scooter on the sidewalk.

Now do cars.

Cars are already banned on sidewalks.

But seriously, I think modern car culture is deeply flawed on multiple dimensions. I would personally love to live in a car-free city with dedicated lanes for bikes, scooters and pedestrians along with their commensurate safety rules and regulations.

Currently, we're rapidly adding motorized vehicles where pedestrians have a historical expectation of safety. There are no lanes on a sidewalk. There are no passing zones. There are no turn signals. You can back up and reverse and will. You can cluster. You can linger. You can photograph buildings. You can walk briskly. You can stop suddenly realizing you left your phone at home, do a 180 and walk-run home. It would be impossible to enumerate all the ways sidewalks are used.

It is fundamentally impossible to resolve the safety expectations of pedestrians with scooters. Pedestrians were there first and will always be there.

Cars aren’t allowed to drive down sidewalks in any jurisdictions I’m aware of.

Right, because they have multiple dedicated lanes that are designed to drive in. Bikes and scooters don’t have the same luxury, so they have to choose between risking getting killed by riding among cars, or riding on the sidewalk. The solution is obviously to build safe infrastructure for scooters.

Also, cars (illegally) driving and parking on the sidewalk is a huge problem in NYC: https://mobile.twitter.com/davecoion/status/1118969565449469...

A similar argument could be made for banning running on sidewalks. In fact a runner could exceed the maximum electric speed of these scooters.

It is ultimately up to the rider to assure safe operating regardless of mode of transport (feed, skateboard, scooter, etc).

The fact that skateboards were widely banned due to a moral panic (largely around culture, not safety), isn't in itself a very strong argument since I'd point out that that ban lacks good justification within itself.

I might agree more if there were safe cycle paths that skateboarders, scooter users, and similar could use but there aren't. Their choices are the sidewalk, where there's a risk of minor injury or the street where there's a risk of death.

For now, the sidewalk is the "least bad" alternative until a better one is built.

Runners and scooter riders are not the same thing at all.

Runners, and specifically regular runners, are by definition self-trained to hit both higher speeds and frequency of runs. The average adult just can't get up and run at 10mph for 10 minutes without training. The average adult probably couldn't do 6mph for 2 minutes. Yet this same average adult, without training, can get on a scooter and move at 5-10mph down a sidewalk.

Second, runners do not run everyday, multiple times for every trip and errand. You can grab a scooter for lunch, for an errand, etc multiple times a day.

Scooter trips are more frequent, done by everyday people and should be banned on sidewalks.

Lastly, it is not the job of pedestrians to accommodate scooters because there is no better alternative yet. That is not how laws and regulations work.

> Scooter trips are more frequent, done by everyday people and should be banned on sidewalks.

Someone should do a cost benefit analysis of danger to pedestrians from the level of cars on the road due to air pollution compared to the reduced harm from cars but increase in risk from scooters.

Having cars drive by is non-0, exposure to break dust and car exhaust are known to case long term irreversible health effects, is there a crossover where a certain % of people getting hit by a scooter at 10mph is a net benefit if there is a large enough reduction in vehicle traffic?

Of course tire particles still exist from some scooters, but the tire types are different and I also wonder what the rate of tire dust from the tires scooters use, and what the exposure impact is there.

We tend to fear the immediate dangers we can see, but not bother doing the math on long term consequences.

> Runners and scooter riders are not the same thing at all.

Wasn't something that was claimed. It was an analogy to show the absurdity of your argument.

> Second, runners do not run everyday, multiple times for every trip and errand. You can grab a scooter for lunch, for an errand, etc multiple times a day.

Above you argued speed was the core problem, now it is frequency? You said a post ago that anything on the footpath going "5 to 10mph" is dangerous due to "the kinetic energy and momentum at 10mph of an adult is considerable." Why is that suddenly safer when it is less frequent? You said it could "lead to bone fractures." Bone fractures are fine when runners do it but not scooter users..? Seems like you've forgotten the argument you were making above.

> Lastly, it is not the job of pedestrians to accommodate scooters

Wasn't something that was claimed.

A similar argument could be made for banning running on sidewalks

When there's a rash of people being hurt by inattentive runners smacking into them, that will be addressed, too.

So why the double standard for scooters and skateboards? Aside from scooter users injuring themselves, there hasn't been a significant problem and yet we're discussing a ban.

Has there been a rash of scooter riders running into people?

I can't speak for Los Angeles, but in some cities, yes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com