Rental e-scooters : yea or nay?

[The Larch]

Just limit their top speed to something like 15 kph. Then they're still useful to get around but slow enough to avoid most serious accidents. And most importantly, they won't be cool enough for the people causing most of the accidents.

They get tricked out anyway.

[Maladict]

Just limit their top speed to something like 15 kph. Then they're still useful to get around but slow enough to avoid most serious accidents. And most importantly, they won't be cool enough for the people causing most of the accidents.

They get tricked out anyway.

Rentals?

[The Larch]

Just limit their top speed to something like 15 kph. Then they're still useful to get around but slow enough to avoid most serious accidents. And most importantly, they won't be cool enough for the people causing most of the accidents.

They get tricked out anyway.

Rentals?

No, I meant regular ones. Over here several people have been caught with tricked out e-scooters that are able to go much faster thna legally allowed.

[Maladict]

Just limit their top speed to something like 15 kph. Then they're still useful to get around but slow enough to avoid most serious accidents. And most importantly, they won't be cool enough for the people causing most of the accidents.

They get tricked out anyway.

Rentals?

No, I meant regular ones. Over here several people have been caught with tricked out e-scooters that are able to go much faster thna legally allowed.

Sure, but the same goes for regular scooters , mopeds and the like. You'll have to enforce it, just like you'd have to enforce the ban.

[Duque de Bragança]

Middle aged man in lycra.

I wouldn't have guessed that acronym if my life depended of it. 

Visions of Horror...  

[Duque de Bragança]

Results in Paris:

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230402-parisians-vote-to-ban-for-hire-e-scooter-rentals-from-french-capital

Parisians voted Sunday in a referendum to ban self-service e-scooter rentals in the French capital. While they have become commonplace since they were first introduced in 2018, a rising accident toll has hardened attitudes towards the "trottinette".

Results from the Paris mayor's office showed that nearly 90 percent of votes in a citywide referendum had been cast in favour of the ban, a decision which Mayor Anne Hidalgo has promised to respect.

Self-service e-scooters have become commonplace on the streets of Paris since they were first introduced five years ago, but irresponsible use and a rising accident toll have hardened city hall's attitude towards the popular mode of transport, which can be rented by the hour and picked up and dropped off anywhere.

When Paris introduced self-service e-scooter rentals in 2018, the city became a world leader in embracing the new mode of transport. The trottinette was billed as a green alternative to cars. Their adoption was spurred by permissive regulation and the rapid expansion of bike lanes in the capital.

But just five years later, Paris residents were asked to vote in a referendum on whether to ban the e-scooter rentals after a spate of accidents prompted safety concerns.

Walking home from a picnic on the banks of the Seine in August 2022, Justine Haley was crossing a set of traffic lights when she was hit by an e-scooter. "I didn't see it at all and I didn't hear it," says the hairdresser in her 40s. "I just remember the power of the scooter hitting my leg, and I fell to the floor on my side."

As a friend helped Justine get up, the driver who hit her stopped to ask if she was OK and, when Justine said she was, swiftly drove away. "She didn't wait to see, and I didn't realise how bad it was because I must have gone into shock."

Incidents like Justine's are common. Almost 500 people were injured in the capital by micro-mobility vehicles in 2022. At the hospital, she says the doctor who treated her was "really tired of it – I could see it in his face. He said he was dealing with trottinette accidents nearly every day."

In 2022, deaths among e-scooter drivers and pedestrians hit by e-scooters increased in the capital. In France, e-scooters caused at least 27 deaths in 2022, compared with 22 in 2021 and 7 in 2020.

Even so, the scooters are still hugely popular. Usage soared in the wake of the pandemic, jumping 90 percent from September 2021 to August 2022. Each vehicle is currently used an average of 3.5 times a day �in Paris – the highest rate of any city in Europe.

Despite the risks, citywide bans are rare. Barcelona is among the few European cities to have introduced and then prohibited self-service e-scooters altogether – a move Hidalgo now favours.

'Not very ecological'

"They're honestly not very ecological – they get damaged and they are left lying wherever," Hidalgo told national television channel France 2 in January. "We can't contain them in public spaces and they're causing road safety problems, especially for older and disabled people."

Safety issues date back to their bumpy introduction in 2018. "It was a mess," says Erwann le Page, public policy director at Tier – one of three self-service providers (along with Lime and Dott) now licensed in Paris. "You had over 20,000 scooters and around 20 different companies operating them."

The sudden influx of scooters – with no dedicated parking spaces and few rules around usage – caused chaos for pedestrians, cyclists and cars.


Since then, Paris has tried to regulate the issue. The fleet is now capped at 15,000 vehicles. Speed limits, fines for misuse and dedicated parking zones have been introduced.

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The three providers – Tier, Lime and Dott – have also stepped in with technological innovations to enforce regulations. Geofencing, for instance, can automatically reduce vehicle speeds in certain zones and charge users for parking in undesignated areas.

With multi-passenger e-scooters now involved in one in five accidents in Paris, technologies are also in the pipeline to prevent two people riding a scooter at the same time.

The pace of improvement has been rapid and there is the potential for more, le Page says. "Our industry didn't exist five years ago. The speed of improvements over the last five years beats 50 years of evolution of cars."

But for now, problems still persist. Dangerously parked scooters are commonplace and accidents are rising year on year.

Soviet-style results. 

[Josquius]

A great example of the sort of thing that is terrible to put to a referendum.

[grumbler]

There are not many of them in my town but they are noticeable because the proportion of users that are arseholes is incredibly high....perhaps as high as 50% 

Maybe the jerk bicycle riders have switched to scooters, and that explains the vast disparity in accident rates. 

[Valmy]

The escooters are/were huge in Austin but they just looked really dangerous so I tended to avoid both using them and their users. Flying down the roads in a dense and car heavy urban environment at high-ish speed with nothing between me and the pavement but my skill as a scooter driver seemed like a bad idea.

[Valmy]

Also has a UT sports fan we have had multiple athletes have season ending injuries on those scooters earning their ire from Alumni throughout the world.

[Duque de Bragança]

Also has a UT sports fan we have had multiple athletes have season ending injuries on those scooters earning their ire from Alumni throughout the world.

 

Feel free to create a poll about banning e-scooters (rental or not) for athletes. 

[HVC]

A great example of the sort of thing that is terrible to put to a referendum.

With 90% agreement it seems like a referendum wad the way to go.

[Josquius]

A great example of the sort of thing that is terrible to put to a referendum.

With 90% agreement it seems like a referendum wad the way to go.

No?
Basically any niche thing that people never really think about but when pressed say is a mild nuisance would get similar results in a referendum.
It's an exercise in over the top reactions to petty nonsense.
If the city didn't like them they could have just far more cheaply ran some research to check the strength of public opinion and banned them without needing a referendum.

Logically that is of course. Maybe (hopefully) there's some weird local law which forces a referendum?

[HVC]

But if they tried the weird bicycle people would complain that the government was picking on them for no reason  (as the do in Toronto all the time) . How expensive was it in comparison to study and polling and another study to verify the first, then concil meetings ad nauseum?

If it was a feferendum to ban downtown cars you'd  be all for it

[Josquius]

But if they tried the weird bicycle people would complain that the government was picking on them for no reason  (as the do in Toronto all the time) . How expensive was it in comparison to study and polling and another study to verify the first, then concil meetings ad nauseum?

No idea.
But in general referenda are expensive. You don't run them for petty things. That's why we have elected politicians in the first place.
I can imagine running such a study for way under 100k including consultant markup.

If it was a feferendum to ban downtown cars you'd  be all for it

Another example of where referenda are the wrong way to go as that vote would likely fail.
There you're talking about a broad concept involving an activity most people do. They would just see it as a loss and not consider it as part of the holistic gain such actions usually are.
obviously doing this would be  for the best and politicians should use their mandate to do it:p