Those rentable scooters and bikes, R U for or against?

[Tico]

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/76056...rom-two-cities

Cities are increasing against them.
I am.

I see them discarded ALL over our neighborhood, on the sidewalks, on lawns including mine, on the street ... yes on the actual street.

IMO they seem to be rented mostly by people who don't take responsibility for their actions.
I've never seen a rider wearing a helmet.

Who pays when a renter sideswipes a parked car, injures a pedestrian, etc?

I thing the contract they agree to, in order to rent them using their stupid-phone, needs to include a legal contract includes an insurance premium fee.

Are you for, or against them?

[Bob Womack]

In our area, green rental scooters showed up on the street corners about two months ago. They were usually clumped in groups of six and were sited on the sidewalks at intersections. Everywhere.

A problem cropped up immediately: The free pickup and drop off lifestyle meant that private businesses had these neon signs of youth piling up at their entrances very quickly. Everyone began wondering exactly what the limits would be for utilizing and disposing of these cycles.

And then the problem disappeared: in the prep for hurricane Dorian, whoever owned them picked up the lot. They haven't returned. We'll see if that condition continues. I'm hoping.

Bob

[TBman]

They are popular in Hoboken where we frequent every now and then. Some of the riders don't get the red light/green light thing and think pedestrians have to yield to them. I almost got clipped by one but my lightening quick reflexes saved the day (ok, maybe the rider slowed a bit and avoided me a little... )

[jpd]

Never seen them! Must not get out enough

[DenverSteve]

Here they popped up pretty quickly followed by two other (total 3) providers. They are left all over the place as stated by Tico. There are rules but many/most riding them do not follow them. They are not supposed to be on the sidewalks - they are. They move too fast and appear out of nowhere. At least one person has been killed and several injured. If they could be controlled, I believe they would be okay. In the current way they are being used, I'm very much against them.

[frankmcr]

Divvy is the bicycle hire outfit here in Chicago. No free rides, you buy a pass to unlock a bike from a Divvy rack. Return it to a rack & no problem. Fail to return the bike properly, get in an accident, anything like that: they have your credit card # & your phone # . . . they will get in touch. Oh yes.

Seems to work great.

[Silly Moustache]

We Have them in the UK, esp. in London, at one time called "Boris" bikes. The problems seem to be similar in that they tend to be abandoned.

I don't see why this should be a problem. You access them by bank card - £2 a day, plus £2 an hour thereafter, but if not returned after a reasonable period - the bank account should be changed the full replacement value.

I've been driving for 54 years, driven RHD cars in the UK (of course) and in France, and LHD cars in Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Canada and the US.etc. You learn the rules of the road in the place you are driving.

I am also a "city" cyclist, because in my city travelling by car is becoming impossible.

firstly to answer a questin about who pays what in the event of accidents - same with Rented bikes as any other bike - cyclists tend not to have road insurance, but Car/lorry drivers obviously do.
Basically, the responsibility falls on the vehicle driver. I was taught from the start to assume that everyone open the road is an idiot, and that can certainly apply to cyclists and pedestrians.
Sue a pedestrian or cyclist ? Good luck with that!

Cycling in a busy, overcrowded city with narrow roads and many strangers confused by the geography is, to say the least - an adventure.

Pedestrians are the biggest danger, especially the phone-zombies.
Cars tend to see you more , but they are bigger and can inflict more injury so a sensible cyclist will adopt a purely defensive approach.

Other cyclists? - the don't follow the highway code, they don't understand that cars/ trucks can't stop dead, don't dress appropriately and can be suicidal in their ignorance.
Personally I feel that cyclists should be pass the same tests as motorists and have insurance.
being an experienced driver helps me on my bike.

I am developing my theory about how pedestrians act.
I have a bell (polite) and a small siren (100 db) on my bike.
Young children are the easiest as they hear my bell and pull parents ot of the way.
Groups of mothers or middle aged women will respond by walking one way then another and end up right in my path (See the cars on my legs!)

Approaching pedestrians I ring my bell not to scare them but to make them aware of my presence, and as I pass them I say thanks. Problems are phone zombies (earbuds) and the elderly whose hearing is failing.

Whenever possible I use back alleys (twittens) and cycle paths which often have pedestrians on them. (that's when the siren is used).

On my journey to the gym I have to use a pathway/subway close to a college - it is obvious presently that we have new kids in town, who seem unable to understand that large pictures of bicycles on the ground might mean that they are for cycles. Good luck with your education kids! Will the phone zombie generation survive I wonder!

I've just ordered a louder siren!

[Bikewer]

Here in St. Louis, we first got the green rental bikes, followed by the yellow ones.
Both of those died a rather quick death. There are photos up on the web of piles of thousands and thousands of these bikes in China being ready to be scrapped.

They were terrible bikes, heavy and unwieldy, and the locking system proved all too easy to defeat
Now, we’re being inundated with at least 3 different suppliers of the electric scooters. They seem reasonably popular, but there are problems. People go whizzing around all over on the things, paying little attention to traffic rules, and local ERs report large number of injuries.
Our campus has lots of the things, and the administration is putting in place plans to “geo-code” the things to limit speeds on campus.

I have a big bicycling history book, and the chapter on such “community” bikes is pretty dismal. City after city has tried the idea only to abandon it after a few years as the bikes were poorly maintained, stolen, abandoned in inaccessible places...

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by Tico

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/76056...rom-two-cities

Cities are increasing against them.
I am.

I see them discarded ALL over our neighborhood, on the sidewalks, on lawns including mine, on the street ... yes on the actual street.

IMO they seem to be rented mostly by people who don't take responsibility for their actions.
I've never seen a rider wearing a helmet.

Who pays when a renter sideswipes a parked car, injures a pedestrian, etc?

I thing the contract they agree to, in order to rent them using their stupid-phone, needs to include a legal contract includes an insurance premium fee.

Are you for, or against them?

I can't help you with stupid phones. Smart phones are reality for most people now. Where wired infrastructure is not good all the development is for wireless. Where transportation development or planning is not good you are also seeing bike share and this scooter share that on the whole did not start out as organized collaboration like bike share. In other places it's regulated and organized.

Not wearing a helmet is an issue in bike share too but where I live bike and scooters are well organized. Some people carry helmets even if they start the trip to work or school in a car, bus or by foot.

Not scooter share as much as bike share, but in my metro area this multi-mode transportation is now proven as a great way and at times cost effective way to aid the problems from car commuting. A few of the bike/ped corridors in my area have counters that show they each help keep about 5000 cars off their corresponding roads in commute times.

Scooter rental disappeared in a place I frequent but the bike share bikes are still there. They're in other cities. We chose bikes over scooters but took helmets on a trip to the Twin Cities and used the app to find and rent bikes. It was great. At one point we could see same people circling for parking while we moved through the campus area.

I'm also for this multi-mode stuff because it makes your work at well being so easy. I'm years into combining a bike and foot use with a car. I've cut out a few to 100+ miles of driving per week. 12 - 20 minutes more getting my HQ office and data center site is counted as an hour of solid exercise. I started life as a chubby kid but ended up a sexagenarian 5'10" in size 32 pants so getting your butt off of a car seat is a "no brainer".

It seems to me the way bike share has had regulated local monopolies is probably the best for these scooters. The bike share monopolist in my metro area is very responsive to the local government units but it's owned by Trek that has a reputation as the bike industry's best for customer service.

[RedJoker]

We've used the bike shares a lot when visiting other cities. The scooters are newer and I haven't had a chance to use one yet. I think it's a great idea.

[patrickgm60]

I'm mostly for them, in our city. Electric assisted to ~15mph, bright orange, renter is charged a $15(?) fee for dropping the bike off in a prohibited area or riding beyond specified boundaries. Similar rules with the scooters.

The China cities I have visited recently are having mixed results. Ironically, the open market was created/allowed there, leading to numerous competing companies. As a result, far too many bikes were put into service, within days of each other. Reports claim that tens of thousands of surplus bikes have already been disposed of.

[JCave]

Originally Posted by jpd

Never seen them! Must not get out enough

Or you get out to the RIGHT places instead in the city...

[Dirk Hofman]

They’re great when visiting cities in Europe, as my family and I did this summer. Super fun for the kids and really handy for getting around urban centers. We have them in San Francisco and they seem well controlled, though early on they were totally unregulated and it was a bit of a mess.

They’re not a problem if implemented correctly, and are a cheap, handy, fun, and low impact way to travel around. Of course if your local community let’s businesses do whatever they want, you’re going to get a bit of a mess. Just takes a tiny bit of thought and effort to move things in the right direction.

[imwjl]

The haters will have to accept change. I see "Mercedes-Benz quietly enters the e-scooter market".

https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/2...urt-motor-show

Transportation will be different than it's been for a lot of people. Ford's in the bike sharing business. More electric vehicles in the wings. More ride sharing is a thing. Better street and road road designs are showing up. I recall reading we're 20+ years into increased public transportation use. Bike commuting is up in some places. The e-assist bikes are also altering things.

Much life revolves around the car, but there's another where the car is receding in favor of walking, biking, and transit.

[Birdbrain]

This is probably unusual, but in my case, I was ahead of the curve. Twelve years ago I ran for local office in a suburban neighborhood that was hilly, with large lots. My asthma was untreated at the time, and I was often arriving breathless at front doors. So I found an electric scooter on the web. It was a Schwinn, a nice design with front shocks and bigger wheels than I'm seeing on rental scooters today. It turned the block-walking chore into a fun sport, like downhill skiing. I felt safe and secure, but I'll always wonder: did I lose by a few dozen votes because I looked undignified on that "kid's scooter?" Nowadays, I'd probably win votes with that hip, urban image.

So I approach the rental scooter question with some positivity, but there are issues when you scale this up to hundreds and thousands of scooters in a tight downtown. Here's some restrictions we might consider: restricted speeds in the downtown core, 10-15 mph max; noisemakers or tall flags attached to the handlebars; a single designated scooter parking zone on the sidewalk, with scooters parked outside that liable to tickets (the charges would be billed to the company, than back to the last customer who used it).

Scooters are everywhere in Denver now, but come winter, there will be much fewer.