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Comment by kinnth | Hacker News Reader

They're great when people are on them, not so great when they are strewn across pavements or knocked over at cycle stands.

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Why apply that standard to scooters and not to cars? Parked cars are strewn all across the road, taking up much more space. Some sit in the same place for weeks.

The road outside my house is about 3x car widths across, there are private cars parked on either side (2/3rds of the total road space) for the full length of the road. Only one car can fit down the road at once, and pedestrians have limited pavement.

Why get so upset about a few scooters on the pavement, when there are cars literally everywhere in the way

I do not get how people can be totally chill with cars and blow a gasket over scooters. In my experience (mostly in Santa Monica, but also plenty of European cities) you will pass block after block of scooters parked correctly. Perhaps in a week you see one in a bad spot but hardly impassible nor a big deal but oh man people flip out over this. In my experience it's been 100% people who's central frame of reference and primary means of locomotion is driving their car around in the city who then start looking for reasons they dislike them. The arguments they come up with sound ridiculous compared to the damage they do with their cars.

I might depend on where you are. In Milwaukee scooters being parked improperly (really, ditched on the sidewalk) was a huge problem (they’re not back yet this year). Even the scooter companies would set them out blocking walkways, bus stop exits, etc.

It got better when the city finally started designating scooter parking areas on the streets last year, but they were too spineless to remove parking spaces in business districts so it was still a problem in those areas.

IMO the scooters would be great if we could designate parking areas on every busy block and have a system to strongly encourage parking there, but until then (as someone who doesn’t drive in the city) I don’t miss them that much.

I'm a cyclist in Stockholm and I hate electric scooters. They are commonly dumped in the bike lanes, sometimes standing up across them and, worse, on the ground right on the bike path.

I have to constantly get off my bike during summer months to move them away from the bike lanes, not only for myself but due to the danger to others less agile than I am. I even had a close encounter to one strewn across the ground right after a blind turn (due to summer vegetation) on a bridge crossing, if I didn't react quickly I'd have simply blasted over it going 20+ km/h... It'd be dangerous to any old person going downhill from the bridge.

It's a fucking disgrace that people feel they can just dump them on bike lanes, I can't educate everyone to set them in a proper place and I never had issues with bikes strewn across the pavement before, so electric scooters are a new danger on the road for me.

And I hate cars.

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