I saw this article today and thought it would make for a good discussion. They didn’t bring up electric skateboards but this could be a glimpse at what’s coming.
“If you imagine just walking on the sidewalk and somebody on a scooter at 15 miles an hour hits you, it can be fatal,” Geez we are in trouble. All the more reason to be respectful to pedestrians even when they act like ass clowns.
Yeah, but the same goes to anything that surrounds us in the world now. You can buy expensive camcorders or film equipment but nobody freaks out about the possibility to accidentally drop one of those devices (they are not even designed for such contingency)? Nobody freaks out about bike messengers (and there are thousands of them in cities like NYC or SF) flying around like maniacs with high chances to hitting people at any second and kill somebody? Heck, what about cars? They’ve been around for more than a hundred years and nobody thinks for a moment they are in inmediate danger everytime we cross a street or while in the sidewalk corner waiting for the white sign to walk across? We are surrounded by such variety of vehicles in our daily lives that impose great dangers to our health and still we did not realize such treats are inminent. Then, why are we (the non-esk8 public) going to worry now about CERTAIN vehicles of mass transportation when they’ve been with us for longer time than we can remember?
Pretty sure cyclists can go faster than 15mph. Seems like the problem is with vandalism not alternative electric transport. Man powered bicycles have been around since 1817. I think because cycling is such a mainstream form of transport its seen as alternative to public transport or driving. I think that the regular person who is against electric skateboards, scooters and segways using pathways or bike lanes just doesn’t understand they can be safe to ride and the people operating aren’t always morons. Just like every other form of transport available to man-kind.
I think I still have this outfit somewhere and HELMETS TIME-TRAVELING PEOPLE
I figured this would be about Bird and Scooter-Sharing startups again before opening that link and reading through the article. I see why some people are getting frustrated…because the public have absolutely no consideration nor respect for others when it comes to this shit. SF had a problem with Bird and it’s members just tossing their scooters all over the place in the city and not even caring if it took the whole sidewalk or if people tripped over them.
More regulation is definitely needed for where they can park those scooters, but vandalism is not the answer. But Bird’s blasé attitude toward their members leaving their scooters all over the place with no regrets nor consideration ticks me off.
We’ll need to redesign roadways for the future of PEV and contiguous PEV traffic at school-zone speeds:
Bad urban planning for PEV 25MPH:
Good urban planning for PEV 25MPH:
I think once cars begin to self-park themseves in those giant vending-machine style parking garages we see popping up in major cities like Shanghai and Berlin (8-10 years this should be common), I think urban planners will shift away from street parking entirely and free that space up for PEV lanes.
Great post, thank you OP
Sounds like people are treating the scooter-sharing like they treat the bike-sharing in China. In China people leave thousands of those shared bikes on the side walks. We should be using them as an example of how not to do ride sharing.
I remember reading articles on that. Freaking nuts…seeing mountains of bikes was ridiculous.
Yeah they literally are mountains of bikes and graveyards full of bikes.
Just saw this gif today also… crazy
that’s coming from fox news so…
i’m smack dab in the middle of scooter county here on the westside of LA. it’s not a big deal as the news is reporting it to be. yea, there’s some residents that are griping about the glut of scooters lining the sidewalks but this image of people burning scooters and throwing them into the ocean is way overblown.
Story started on the LA Times so…but whatever.
I thought it was funny they are worried about 15mph scooters when that’s all I do when I’m limping home on eco.
just saying these stories of mountains of scooter and people setting them on fire…it’s greatly exaggerated.
the scooter companies have already paid tons fines (in the millions) to santa monica, etc, and are actively working on ordinances that’ll make these things work.
Yea I agree. Just hope these articles don’t jump start more grumpy folks to give us a hard time. I already get grief from some bikers occasionally but I just ignore them and floor it when I hear their whinny rants
I don’t know…I rode the boardwalk from Redondo to Venice a few weeks back and the bird scooters where laying everywhere from Marina Del Rey on north. Laying in the bike path, parked on sidewalks, laying in the sand, it was pretty bad. No way things can continue like that, which sucks for us because the future regulations will almost certainly impact esk8s as well.