>ban all rental e-scooters from October because of the risk they pose to pedestrians
>injury-inducing street litter
Do cars next, I dare you.
>injury-inducing street litter
Do cars next, I dare you.
If you abandon a car in the middle of the road across two lanes, you'll fairly likely see relatively hefty fines, possibly lose your car. This hurts you, the abandoning party directly.
If you abandon a rental e-scooter in the same way, you'll most likely have no repercussions, and at worst the cheap e-scooter is forfeit which doesn't impact you, the abandoning party at all, and not really the e-scooter company either since they're most likely on a VC funded mission to try to flood the market with cheap e-scooter rentals until the competition drowns.
There's some seriously skewed incentives at the root of the rental e-scooter plague.
Straight banning them because a bunch of fuddy duddies who never took one don’t like them is pretty short sighted.
They did? When? Here in Tokyo, they've only very recently allowed e-scooters to be used.
If not, this might not be as "trivial to address" as you first think.
Yet it is not.
Sure you might have the occasional delivery truck or car but it would generally be much safer and more pleasant for everyone.
It'd be quite ironic if the US pulls this off in their cities and European cities become car-infested urban jungles.
Plus, these things usually stand right on a sidewalk, right in the way of pedestrians.
Good riddance. Hopefully more cities follow.
Edit: I can think of a way. These things move in a regular traffic. To drive a car, I had to do a driving license. 40 hours with an instructor, a theory test, and a practical exam. How come any clueless chimp can get one of these and ride in traffic? They are dangerous to themselves and others. It’s a celebration when they wear a crash helmet.
So here are my ideas:
1. Require a license for these things.
2. Collect and remove illegally parked scooters. Rental companies know who rode one, they can claim the cost of a scooter removal fee from the rider who parked it illegally. If they are concerned about people randomly moving scooters into illegal parking positions… well, come up with dedicated parking areas where the rider has to bring them back and lock them.
Until then: ban them.
But it's interesting you mention a bicycle license. In the 1990s I did one in Poland as a young teenager. It was called "karta rowerowa". Not exactly a license but it taught me about traffic rules and probably saved me from trouble. It was worth it. Some cyclists in Aachen could make use of something similar, maybe they'll know that cycling 5kph in the presence of the StVO VZ 277.1 just aggravates everybody.
A big part of licensing is that you can take it away. Cyclists and scooter riders often ignore traffic controls that apply to them. We ignore it because the likelihood and impact of injury to others is low.
> well, come up with dedicated parking areas where the rider has to bring them back and lock them
I think GP mean lock them to a solid pole, as a bike. Make the pole deliver electricity (non trivial) and you have a recharge station.
I walk daily for exercise and have almost been hit several times by some kid doing crazy things on them.
I would say it is at least once a week I see someone do something stupid on one.
Without needing a license there is nothing to lose for driving stupid.
Comparing these to a bike is obvious bullshit.