Hacker News Reader

Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

> Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way.

So you make the problem worse?

Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why?

I live in a major downtown full of these scooters. When I see them blocking something, I just move them. Why is this so difficult? It takes such a tiny amount of effort to fix this problem you are describing. You live in a society, and it’s your responsibility to contribute.

View on HN

Perhaps it is human nature to want to inflict harm on those we perceive to be causing harm. This rarely leads to the best outcome. So I would love to hear from cooler heads that could improve the following idea and take the pointless retribution out of it:

It is not enough to kick over a scooter. We need to tag repeat offenders and increase the severity of the response. For instance, paint one handlebar grip on the first infraction, then the other grip on the second, then a seat, headlight/taillight, etc. A scooter that has been tagged enough can have the tires flattened, spokes broken, etc.

Clearly, there are numerous flaws with the solution above. It's really a terrible idea. To some degree it shows the flaws with kicking over offending scooters.

Alternatively, you could hire enforcement officers to issue citations. That also has flaws. You could build a system that allows random citizens to document offenses in a credible way and then have authorities act on repeated offenses. Also not without problems.

Perhaps coloring the scenario differently might help. Imagine, for instance, that a certain neighborhood house is popular with the neighborhood children. The children frequently ride their bikes to the house and leave their bikes strewn in the driveway, the front yard, and on the sidewalk. What would be an appropriate series of responses? How could you build a system that protects against a grumpy neighbor abusing whatever escalation mechanism you devise?

Who is the repeat offender in this situation?

The scooter company who provides the scooters? The scooter renter who drops the scooter in semi-random locations? The city who built the sidewalks?

It seems like you are targeting the scooter company when it may be the users who are being careless. I’ve seen a lot of scooters left in the way when a reasonably clear area was just a few feet away.

In the first scenario, the repeat offender is clearly the tagger.

But to address your valid question, the scheme shifts the costs to the scooter provider who would likely then impose costs on the scooter polluter. Although they may instead choose to impose costs on all their customers to subsidize the offender.

But it is a very clumsy scheme with many flaws, so probably not a great model upon which to iterate.

If Moore's law continues for a few more years, we'll probably see offenders fined automatically with the use of omnipresent traffic cameras. Since the scooters have number plates just like cars, it isn't infeasible to identify them and their drivers at any moment. The cameras and software that are already in place made me wary of driving, and especially parking, in the UK (after fining me for parking at an empty motorway restaurant parking lot overnight, and at a half-empty supermarket car park with no gate for more than 90 minutes), and there is nothing that will prevent them from spoiling my preferred mode of transport that I use to travel to work every day, electric scooters.

In particular, they could achieve this by enforcing the law that makes them illegal to drive on the sidewalk. It won't matter that it is 3am and the nearest pedestrian is two miles away, or that you're driving at less than walking speed. You'll get fined anyway.

To add a bit of optimism, maybe these systems will become good enough to only fine those who drive inconsiderately or dangerously, and a successful campaign will make that the law, instead of the blanket ban.

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access?

Because you’ll be doing this over and over again. How about those companies educate their users how to behave in a neighbourhood where those people are basically guests?

That may be a valid argument to not push them all to the side every time, but it isn't a valid argument for intentionally worsening the problem.

How does the gp make the problem worse? Instead of gently moving them over to the side of the sidewalk, they toss it to the side of the sidewalk.

End result is the same, they’re out of the way… Just a bit more rage maybe in the process.

By knocking them over, they're now wide enough to be in the way even on the side.

GP said “and out of the way”.

Toss them into a pile will make them more compact. Really it wouldn't take too long to clear a whole sidewalk of them, granted it might get more difficult once the pile gets to significant height. But I'm thinking 1 scooter toss every 2-5 seconds: 1 grunt grab, 2 grunt grab, 3 grunt grab etc, you can imagine it happening at a decent pace.

I mean do we really need the scooters at all in a country with 71.6% of adults overweight? A walk would do some good.

Let's be real, no one's going to walk. If they scooter instead of driving, it's a win.

Exactly. Where I've gotten the most benefit from scooters is in cities like Dallas and Phoenix. It's impossible to walk around those cities because they're so big and spread out, but a scooter means I don't need to drive constantly.

I don't imagine that would help. Most of these scooter companies already do some sort of education regarding traffic laws... but when was the last time you saw a person on a scooter, stopped at a red light, wearing a helmet?

The only way it'll be fixed is if someone actually enforces compliance.

I agree, and even if punishing bad behavior is appealing, I think it'd work best if Scooter Co. added sensors so it could tell/see where the rider parked the scooter, and rewarded good parking with free rides (which would also prevent griefing the last rider by quickly dragging it somewhere terrible to get them punished).

Last time I rode one they required that I take a picture of how I left it to prove that I abided by their placement rules in order to end the ride.

I think most of those simply require that you send a picture. I'm not sure that they validate that the scooter is parked correctly, and I have seen people submit pictures of other scooters parked correctly.

I haven’t, one of these things knocked me out unconscious while I was waiting for green light to cross the road.

It came from the side, hit me, I landed in the middle of the street. Happened right in front of the central station in Antwerpen.

Just imagine how confused you are waking up laying in the middle of the road while a paramedic smacks you in the face and asks you if you know what your name is. I’m going to spare the details for how long the grit I landed with my face on was coming out of my nose and the chin.

I don’t understand how it’s okay for these scooters to be legal. They are so quiet and so fast. They can come from any direction and you’ll not hear a thing. Apparently that’s what is so appealing about them.

I mean, with a car there are at least some clearly defined rules. Barring mental people, everyone drives on the roads, within clearly defined lanes while we walk on the sidewalk. These scooters are everywhere!

If it helps, you can point Antwerp's politicians to Copenhagen, where rental scooters have been banned from starting or ending journeys in the city centre.

https://www.eltis.org/in-brief/news/e-scooters-allowed-back-...

I don’t live in Antwerpen, just visiting sometimes. But good to know.

My doctor in Germany said to me this is a surprisingly common story.

From what I've seen in Oxford and Munich, scooter drivers are quite considerate in these cities.

Oxford:

- requires a driver's license

- capped at 12mph

- highly granular 0/5/8/12mph zones (boundaries are a bit spotty, but will likely get better with time)

- only allowed to park at predefined parking spots

- decent bike/e-scooter infrastructure

- loud

- private scooters are illegal and common

Munich:

- driver's license not required

- capped at 20km/h

- allowed to park anywhere

- great bike/e-scooter infrastructure

- quiet

- private scooters are legal and rare

The speed limit in Antwerpen is 25km/h. From my experience of driving in Prague, which also has a 25km/h speed limit, (omitted above because I haven't seen many people driving there), the difference in vehicle control when driving at 20km/h vs 25km/h is enormous. At 20km/h, the braking distance is ~2m, the turning radius is small, and hopping off the scooter to avoid a collision feels safe. Driving among car traffic is smoother at 25km/h, but it doesn't feel safe to hop off at that speed and the turning radius feels twice the 20km/h value.

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes

Wow, if a 3-4 minute walk involves 10 scooters that's now almost a 25-minute walk.

It's not the OP's job to clean up after everyone else.

No one encounters 10 misplaced scooters in a 3-4 minute walk, and it would take under a minute to move a single scooter. That's a very unrealistic hypothetical.

I guess you've never been in SOMA in San Francisco. I used to live in that neighborhood and in the 3 block walk to the coffee shop I could easily pass 20-30 of them. In my current neighborhood I'll see about 6 in the same distance.

You passed 20 scooters blocking your path in a 3 minute walk?

I lived in SF when the scooters first appeared. Maybe it's gotten worse, but I thought they made you prove you parked it somewhere legally with a photo. So I would figure at least the majority aren't just blocking the sidewalk.

I'm not saying they aren't misplaced a lot and that it isn't a problem. I'm just saying there's no way every 10 seconds you're climbing over a scooter on your walk (20 in 3 minutes).

The pics aren’t validated at all. I just take pics of the sidewalk in front of me and send it no scooter in the pic at all

I think you underestimate the number of people who are careless and inconsiderate. Or maybe you live in a very nice part of town. I sometimes get stuck doing 8 things on the way to do a thing I intended to do, because I see a thoughtless thing and cannot help myself from fixing it. It's important to higher functioning to be able to look at a thing wrong and say "not my job to fix it!" without guilt.

It doesn’t take 2 minutes to move a scooter 3 feet. It takes about 10 seconds.

It doesn't take very long for me to pick up litter on my walks. But I still will wish people would stop fucking littering.

No lol, it's the other people responsibility not to be a nuisance.

But I agree throwing them aside is not the optimal solution.

Municipality looking for money could get some large cash influx from ticketing improperly parked scooters, the owning company can decide to eat the loss or flip the ticket on the user, either way people will get educated fast.

It would only take for the law enforcement to enforce rules that are already there

A fine doesn't help the person actually "inconvenienced" by the scooter(s). It just gives the city more money.

Seems like the company might eat the fine, the city will take the money, and the problem persists, but now the city is happy too.

> A fine doesn't help the person actually "inconvenienced" by the scooter(s). It just gives the city more money.

not immediately, (albeit towing would). but would solve the problem in the long run, which will eventualy help the person be inconvenienced less.

> Seems like the company might eat the fine, the city will take the money, and the problem persists, but now the city is happy too.

Then the fine isn't big enough? (:

They could impound the scooters, only to release them when the fines are paid; this prevents (some of) the inconvenience.

It also said “and out of the way”.

How is getting them out of the way, on their side or not, worsening the situation?

Moving one scooter aside doesn't fix the problem. Also they said they move them aside, the only difference between them and you is they knock the scooters over. I don't see how they're worsening the problem by moving the scooters aside.

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why?

Uh... I said out of the way. I push them onto the easement required by the city which is grass from the curb to the sidewalk.

There is no way that this is in any way "worse." Especially due to the fact that they are usually in the way via being not parallel.

In Dallas everyone started loading them up in trucks and throwing them into the lake. The city quickly banned them.

>So you make the problem worse?

It might make the problem worse in the short term but maybe those leaving them in the middle will move them out of the way in the future possibly reducing the issue long term.

Good old accelerationism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com