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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

I can absolutely understand it being frustrating when you work in the industry but I can see a ton of very valid concerns when it comes to robots on sidewalks. There are already a lot of accessibility concerns with these scooter companies that let people leave scooters wherever (blocking access for wheelchair or otherwise disabled folks), seems valid to me that you’d want to make sure those robots do not hinder other kinds of sidewalk transit.

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I would trust a robot to be less obstructionist than randomly placed scooters by inconsiderate humans

Measure the width from one building, across the street, to the other. The vast majority of the space is taken up by land reserved for cars. Scooters are not the problem. The fact that cars are allowed sole domain of the vast majority of public spaces is.

The answer is 100% not to allow more 4 wheeled vehicles to take over the small amount of space the two/four legged individuals have left. I have 80% a mind to push every food carrying robot into the street where they belong when I see them coming by on a sidewalk making everyone leap out of the way to avoid their drunken careening.

You’ll hear no disagreement from me on that but I don’t see us anywhere near reimagining how we allocate road space. So absent some unexpected and dramatic shift, scooters/robots/whatever are still able to cause obstructions.

Yes but the cars’ use is sanctioned and by design, while scooters are taking up space meant for pedestrians and bikes. That can be reallocated but when it happens without any discussion or update to laws, it can upset people. But the difficulty is that a small startup can’t afford to fight political or legal battles, so it’s easier for them to just break some rules. Is that a good thing? Maybe.

"sanctioned and by design"

So is "qualified immunity". Yet it's still unjust.

Are you suggesting that a scooter user who is inconsiderate enough to not be willing to move the scooter two feet to avoid blocking a handicapped ramp would be willing to move it several feet to leave it in the street if the street were available?

Do you think scooter riders would even be on the sidewalk dodging trees and pedestrians if they could using the road safely?

This is about where they leave the scooters. Do you think they are going to leave them in the road? I think the ones that currently leave them as close as they can to the entrance to whatever building they are going to without regard to whether that blocks a handicapped ramp will, if they arrive by road, ride right up that handicapped ramp and leave the scooter the same place they leave it now.

I understand and respect the cities decision. I was frustrated that there was zero interest in compromise. There are many areas of the city that are "condo ville" 1000s of people in 4 cities blocks, and the width of the sidewalks in those particular areas are MASSIVE. You would have to deliberately impede someone, so that end: the robots are driven by humans, humans who are trained to absolutely under all circumstances make sure they are not impeding anyone or causing a problem as their primary focus, secondary focus is the delivery. We just needed somewhere to test, and the city wouldn't even have the conversation, and we asked and asked. That in particular is why I say "hostile".

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