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Comment by ljf | Hacker News Reader

Bought an electric scooter for my father (didn't work out at all for him, too old), so I've inherited it. For about town (I live in a small town in the UK) it has meant I barely use the car now. I can get to a supermarket and back again in the time it would take me to walk there, I can get to my parents house and back to do some errand in the time it would take me to drive and park.

But it is illegal. Each time I take it out I run the risk of getting a fine - but for now I'll take the risk as the benefit is too great for me. I'd love to buy a 'legal' one and would happily pay whatever registration or insurance was required.

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Why not use a bicycle or a regular (non-electric) scooter? Honest question, I'm not being snark.

Non-electric scooters are a terrible mode of transport. Pretty obvious if you've ever used one (or a skateboard) but as soon as you hit any kind of gentle uphill slope they're more effort than just walking.

A bicycle is fine but you have to put in effort which is not always appealing and you can't take it into buildings (though on the other hand it's more reasonable to leave it locked up outside).

There's definitely a unique space that e-scooters occupy where they're better than every other option.

In the dotcom era I rode a Xootr kick scooter all over San Francisco. It was excellent, even on minor uphills. A lot lighter than an electric for carrying on BART. It was pretty great in that environment. (I still have it, but the place I live now is more conducive to bicycling.)

I used to LOVE my Razer scooter back in the 00's - rode it all over London, and you are quite right, even lighter. I used to skateboard 'commute' a lot in Australia too when I lived there - was a great way of getting around on the flats/down hill and easy/light to carry up hill. Too old to skate now (or too fearful of getting hurt again rather) and I really should try my son's scooter out more, but ease, smoothness and just 'go' of the electric scooter just has too much of a pull for me!

I also had an old 'lead acid batter electric scooter I used to ride in London a lot in 2004ish - was great fun and could carry me and my wife together to the pub and back on the canal paths - they weren't an issue back then as then the police only used to care about the petrol 'goped' scooters that we illegal - though you would see a few of them around London, in parks and on the roads. Many I love alternative transport (while almost always owning a car too). I had a cyclemotor/autocycle - a road legal mountianbike with 35cc petrol engine - got stopped a couple of times by the police on that, but they were just interested in what it was as they'd never seen one before. Had something called a 'Daylight MOT' far simpler to pass but can only ride dawn to dusk.

Man you have me wanting to dig some of these out of the sheds and garages that they are buried in!

Op here. I am a cyclist too, but cycling means I have to get the bike out the shed, cycle there (which admittedly is fast) then lock it up somewhere (not always available outside the shop) , then cycle home with my shopping bag.

On the scooter I go the supermarket with the scooter, do my shop and it is so much easier to scoot home with a bag over the handlebar than it is on a bike.

I love cycling and I cycle a lot for pleasure, but for errands the scooter is just perfect, no effort, easy to take in the house or pub, or train, or shopping. After a day of work I often just want easy.

Before I had the scooter I did likely cycle more, but I also used the car much more.

Bicycles are significantly larger and harder to maneuver - and a non-electric scooter is about as useful as a wagon would be.

At least for me. I have a very short walk to the store, and I'd consider a scooter but using the bike is just too much of a hassle most of the time.

As a datapoint, I got an adult kick scooter in NYC years ago to use for transportation. It worked as an alternative to walking around the neighborhood for distances up to a couple miles and the kids loved riding with me on it. But it didn't work for commuting, and anyone who considers skateboards and scooters in the same category as their electric counterparts has probably not attempted to commute with them.

As a worst-case example, take crossing the Queensboro Bridge which took about ~30 mins by foot, ~20 mins by kick scooter, and less than ~10 minutes by bike or electric scooter. On the surface that seems like a kick scooter fills a valid niche. However, on a sustained uphill a kick scooter is more tiring than walking and not substantially faster, so it's often simpler to just carry it. It is faster on the way down, but also stressful as you have to sit on the brakes the whole time to keep from going too fast on 200mm rubber wheels over cracked concrete. Saving ten minutes of walking just wasn't worth the extra stress and weight.

You can get kick scooters with inflatable tires and suspension but they're so low volume that it's not much more expensive to get a mass-produced electric scooter.

Get one of these mother-heckers ;; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcSqyIO7Ym8

I have a $7,000 e-bike and this guy is like $4,500 but can go sixty and they also can accept a trailer with an 80? mile range...

I am currently trying to figure out a trailer solution for my bike, which only pushes me to 20 MPH (Class I) (class II have a throttle thumb lever - Class III push to 28 MPH) (But cost ~$15K)

Electric scooters are illegal in UK?

It's ridiculous, in London you can hire one and ride that around, but you can't ride your own. You also need a driving license.

Completely unfounded but I think there is a lot of pressure being applied by the taxi groups to try and discourage them.

I don't think it's that ridiculous that when you first introduce something so potentially dangerous and disruptive that you require a driving licence demonstrating at least a little about the rules of the road, as well as experience in traffic and also that you only permit scooters that have been built to a known standard and that are actively maintained and easier to ensure that they meet the rules on legal max speeds etc.

What is the alternative? Tonnes of youngsters weaving in and out of traffic on their £5 knock-off import?

None of this seems to be an issue with hire ebikes.

Also the license requirement isn't about competency on the roads, it can be a provisional license without a single driving lesson.

Not legal on public roads or pavements.

UK is almost as bad as the US when it comes to car-centricism, or it was historically.

https://www.halfords.com/cycling/advice/are-electric-scooter...

"Pavements" means "sidewalks"?

Yeah.

On various level, yes

“ Currently, there isn't a specific law for e-scooters so they are recognised as "powered transporters" - falling under the same laws and regulations as motor vehicles, and subject to all the same legal requirements - MOT, tax, licensing and specific construction. However, because e-scooters don't always have visible rear red lights, number plates or signalling ability, they can't be used legally on roads. Private e-scooters can only be used on private land and not on public roads, cycle lanes or pavements. The only e-scooters that can be used on public roads are those that are rented as part of government-backed trials. E-scooter trial in London, June 2021 IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES Do I need a driving licence? Yes. To use an e-scooter from an official trial, you need to have category Q entitlement on your driving licence.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48106617

A lot of places have this problem. Pavements are for pedestrians. Roads are for roadworthy vehicles. It’s maybe legal to go on bike paths. But the network of those might go from nowhere to nowhere.

As a cyclist, I'd happily take e-scooters in the bike lane if it meant a protected network of lanes that spanned my area (like Amsterdam and similar).

The current mix of bikes and scooters in the road, on the sidewalk, in the bike lanes (usually not protected) is a nightmare in busier areas.

Agreed. Bikes and e-scooters move at around the same speed, if we had a useful network of protected lanes where I am then both would be attractive options.

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