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Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

Really? Don't remember last time i saw a car doing 20-25mph on a 4ft wide pavement. I saw it twice this morning with scooters

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I don’t get the point you are trying to make here.

Drivers operating cars 100% legally are a bigger threat to pedestrians than reckless scooter users.

Are we replacing drivers though, or just adding a new threat to our streets on top of existing ones.

Here in London at least, scooter journeys are mostly impractical by private car due to lack of parking. Logically they are replacing bus journeys, walking, taxis and cycling.

the point is that there is an emerging new threat.

aside : i'd like to see this world of yours where cars are operated 100% legally -- even very responsible drivers tend to violate some road laws on a fairly common basis.

They meant a fictional %100 legal operation of cars is still more dangerous than scooters

Consider why the pavement is only 4ft wide.

Some of the roads where i live are over 2000 years old. Was it because society used vehicles to build their civilisation and to move goods and provide services at lower latency?

If scooter users stayed on roads i wouldn't have a problem. But the technology lends itself to abuse by people with no knowledge of safe road use.

Because London is a 2000 year old city?

It’s the huge amount of space given to cars. Or did those exists 2000 years ago also?

Walking on a roads was a thing (and still is in some places). Tokyo, for example.

The place I'm in right now is supposedly a modern development but the sidewalks are in such disrepair / built over / covered in debris that everyone just walks in the road with the traffic.

It’s been rebuilt many times since then, even discounting the bombing of World War Two which destroyed roughly 2 million homes (of approx 5 million at the time in London).

The great fire of London literally reduced the city by so much that practically the entire city was rebuilt; that was only 350y ago (not making the case that you’re wrong about it being old, but 2,000 years is unfortunately wrong)

Anyway, urban design is not set in stone.

It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Los Angeles as an example of a city that already exists being radically changed, entire blocks of buildings were demolished to make downtown roads so wide.

> It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Los Angeles as an example of a city that already exists being radically changed, entire blocks of buildings were demolished to make downtown roads so wide

I'm not sure giving LA, one of the poster cities for how not to do urban design, as an example, is a great idea.

Paris did the same thing, only in a much more measured fashion, in the 1760s under Haussmann and Napoléon III.

However destroying parts of a city which is thousands of years old just to increase the size of sidewalks would be to destroy historical monuments for minimal gains. If anything, making most small streets pedestrian and bike only sounds smarter.

Wasn’t making the point that it was good but saying that urban design is locked in to “history” is the most common argument against good cycling infrastructure.

(and i was trying to correct the notion that the city of london has not had radical changes in its urban design for 2000 years)

And funnily Paris is re-configuring the city for active travel right now!

20-25mph is an exaggeration at best. Otherwise, check out r/IdiotsInCars.

People operating electric scooters recklessly do not get a pass because some people drive their cars like idiots.

In my experience it is the majority of users here in London. They feel like quasi pedestrians so they run lights, use pavements and operate without a driving license (as required by law). Given at the moment there are so few of them relatively speaking the coming epidemic of scooters will be a disaster for pedestrians

I'm not saying they get a pass, I'm saying that if you're also not outraged at the way cars are operated you've got a double standard. It's very trendy to hate on scooters.

> 20-25mph is an exaggeration at best.

No. It is not. I even had work colleagues modifying their scooters firmware to do up to or over 30mph

This is illegal in the UK. You cannot legally drive a privately owned scooter in public. They are classed as vehicles and you need to be insured to drive them, you cannot insure a private scooter. When you rent a scooter from one of the apps they come with insurance built in.

Your colleague, and others, breaking the law and driving dangerously does not mean we should get rid of a means of transportation that is legally and safely used by others.

That looks like a recipe for broken bones.

You’d think that would stop them but you’ve only got to see Barcelona’s motorcycle injury rates or Bangkok’s vehicle death rates to see that isn’t the case.

In Berlin, this morning: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/car-driven-int...

What does this have to do with the topic of discussion?

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