Hacker News Reader

Comment by _nalply | Hacker News Reader

I have been in Paris two weeks ago and I am surprised how much Paris changed in the last years. Bike lanes and people who ride bikes and scooters everywhere.

I hope that this is THE change in most European metropolises for the future. Not only in Barcelona.

View on HN

Been in Paris two weeks ago as well to visit my girlfriend who's been living there for 11 years.

Scooters are in the process of being banned in Paris because they are too dangerous and in Rome, where I come from, they are going yo be heavily regulated (mandatory helmet, reduced speed, designated pick up and drop locations, etc. ) because they caused a +35% increase of brain traumas to teenagers

Not everything that looks cool on first sight it's an actual improvement.

I wonder if they’ll actually enforce the scooter ban on private ones. Because they certainly don’t enforce traffic laws on motos lane splitting constantly anywhere.

Speculating here because I am not aware of the details, but I guess they will be regulated the same way mopeds are: license plates, helmets and all that stuff.

Haha.

I rented a car. This gave me the feeling that it is inofficially tolerated by the police. But driving on the bus lanes is very strictly verboten even for motos and using the bike lanes is frowned upon. I once saw a lorry unloading on a bike lane and a police car stopping by the driver and after some gesticulating the police seemed to admonish the driver like this: okay but get away from here ASAP!

It would be a shame if they are banned as it is one of the most efficient and enjoyable ways to get around the city.

In my opinion they certainly bring the fun factor, but regarding efficency they offer no real advantage over electric mopeds, especially when riding them with a passenger.

They are probably more "portable" though.

Electric mopeds are amazing, best way of transporting yourself in a city when the weather allows. It has all the benefits, the only downside is that you can't really use it in rain or snow.

In principle it's a great idea but from the picture it looks like they're monopolizing a shared resource. This isn't fundamentally different than adults parading around during Critical Mass.

*teenagers who fall.

Really could've been reduced by a lot with a few simple instructions in the app. Stick to the right, don't speed, be careful, etc.

Who the fuck falls off a scooter, anyway.

Have never ridden one, but I assume you could easily crash into a person, car, curb, signpost, other scooterers, hit a rock etc..

Simple instructions don't solve anything, and represent a design flaw. If the design doesn't inherently address the problem you want to solve, then text definitely won't.

Well, I'm saying that because people don't even realize they need to treat the road somewhat like a car driver.

Like, literally, they install the app and get on the scooter and do 20km/h on the opposite side then are surprised that there's people and bikes coming right into them.

A simple "stick to your right" would help a lot of them imo.

And it's really hard to crash one ime, but then again I somehow never fell or crashed a bicycle for half my life.

Ya idk that sounds pretty bad tbh. It is arguably a result of poor road design as well, but some people will just do some bizarre stuff.

Not a judgment on my side on teenagers, this is from an Italian source translated through Google

The numbers are quite bad

https://www-inmoto-it.translate.goog/news/altre-notizie/cron...

I've crashed a Lime/Bird at least 3 times, none of them related to cars or other people in any way.

1. Taking a pedestrian bridge off-ramp in the rain at max velocity because I wanted to see if I could take the corner going that fast.

2. Finding a quarter-pipe set up next to a bridge. How can you resist trying to shred it? It went well on run 1 thru 9. Run # 10, not so well.

3. Driving one home drunk at 230am and trying to drive it with only one hand.

My point is that it's pretty easy to fall off if you are pushing the envelope in any way at all. Who the hell falls of a scooter? Hah! Who the hell rides one exactly how you are supposed to? Totally boring.

I honestly can't wait for electric vehicles to become common. No more getting gas attacked when waiting at a traffic stop. Air pollution is a big deal in my country.

Electric vehicles are plugging up traffic exactly as bad as fossil fueled vehicles.

Now I read a little more about Paris what changed. The mayor Ms Hidalgo introduced the concept of the 15 minute city [0]. It's more important that people can reach all important services within 15 minutes of walking than having Teslas standing in traffic everywhere.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/07/paris-mayor-un...

In most of European cities the use of electric scooters have skyrocketed, both private bought and as a service (like Lime).

I don't know how is in France, but in Spain there are new regulation, and new ones halfway, to have a regulation where these vehicles are registered, users have to use helmet, and in a near future, even have civil liability/accident insurance to prevent some kind of problem.

At first, there wasn't nay kind of problem, but more and more people keep buying this scooters, they were driving at high speed in the pavement, there was some accidents with scooters involved, and even there was a couple of pedestrian deaths due to misuse, so the government got serious about that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com