As somebody who lives in a town with a shitload of those scooters I can say it’s slightly rarer for a pickup to simply ram itself though a crowd of people in the arrogant assumption they’ll move out of the way.
For as much as I like about living in a friendly tourist town, no the people here are a touch too civilized to assault a high school over a scooter accident.
I’d argue having electric vehicles harassing pedestrians on the sidewalks and trails contributes to the number of cars on the road as it makes walking or taking a pedal bike anywhere even more inconvenient, the opposite of what we need.
If it makes you feel any better, someone tried doing this to me while they were on a scooter.
Unfortunately for them, but lucky for me, I can’t feel that side of my body… so I knee jerk threw out my arm, effectively close lining him.
Due to my slight limp, it did not go well publicly for the guy on the scooter, as most the crowd were insisting I press charges for assault for him speeding down a busy sidewalk. Suffice to say, despite the bruises, I didn’t really feel it, so I didn’t press charges and said we all make mistakes just be more cautious.
In my experience cars do that all the time, and the only reason it doesn’t happen more is because all our laws and infrastructure has been built to ensure that cars get absolute priority. Let’s be clear, the reason we are having this debate is because 90% of our transport corridors have been surrendered to only cars, while the rest of us are left squabbling over the few tiny un-prioritized slivers that aren’t blocked by yet more cars. We need wider footpaths, and wider better cycle lanes to allow e-scooters to travel at higher speeds. This space is avalible by slightly shrinking the traffic lanes.
What about a cab? We’re car-free and that’s what we did when my wife went into labour. I mean, if you’re having an asthma attack, you probably shouldn’t be driving anyway.
Lololol those scooters fly past you in your lane of travel. I’m glad for the lockdown. I’m really not worried about the trucks. They are rare and I usually see shit boxes driving like asses compared to expensive vehicles.
I couldn’t care less if e-scooters gain more traction but I do care if a completely unprotected vehicle can go at speeds where either the driver/rider or a pedestrian can get killed or seriously injured in the event of an accident and those have already happened where I live, with a large proportion going towards recklessness of the driver/rider.
These vehicles have been recorded travelling down highways, criss-crossing traffic, cutting in front of busses, etc, often with very gory results for every part involved.
In Germany they’re limited to bicycle infrastructure and neither sidewalks nor highways are that, 20km/h (hardware limit, 12.4274mph in colonial units), no license but minimum age is 14, same DUI laws as for cars, and you need insurance. Which, granted, is quite cheap at 30-60 Euro a year and comes with a cute little license plate in fashionable colours (as in: changes every year). There’s also some signalling requirements mostly mirroring bikes, minimum standards for brakes, such stuff. No regular technical inspection, though.
The morale? If you want to go fast get a bike 30km/h aren’t that hard.
Do the police actually speedcheck you? It’s also 20km/h maximum in Sweden, but the police haven’t stopped me yet when I routinely go 35+ for many years now.
Driving faster would mean unlocking it which means it’s not street-legal any more which isn’t much of a fine, 70 Euros, but it also means that the insurance is invalid which means up to one year prison/fine and might cost you your driving license.
They really went all-in on the insurance thing because apparently people behave like pedestrians with the thing, but at bicycle speeds and above which isn’t a good mix.
The police here caught a guy going 70km/h on a heavily “optimized” scooter recently. He admitted that he didn’t know how fast he went, as the speed indicator only goes up to a speed of 30km/h.
We allowed those contraptions with the same restrictions as bicycles but because the tourist industry is wild here, they became sort of a fever and soon we were having people modifying those things to reach 80km/h or more.
e-kickscooters, e-bikes and pedelecs can actually go faster here, but they would need to be classified as motorscooter/moped (<45km/h, drivers license, operating license, no use of sidewalks or bike lanes, mandatory helmet) or motorbikes (motorbike license, registered plate not just insurance plate, mandatory inspections)
Cyclists wanting to go 30 clash with the majority of cyclists, we’re used to it. The outdated infrastructure doesn’t help, either, some of it is literally the ~50cm asphalt lanes Nazis more or less painted on sidewalks to get bicycles off the streets, “to not hinder progress”. Luckily you’re not required to use them if they’re intolerable, which they generally are. Especially in Hamburg. The kind of annoying thing is that the large concrete pavers they used for the sidewalk actually do last ages, even roots pushing them up don’t really do damage pedestrians would care about, and many municipalities bill property owners for street refurbishments and politicians don’t want to face pitchforks or change the statutes (and spend municipal money) so nothing gets done.
Not so much with ebikes, although I understand that those are also hobbled by speed restrictions. It seems ironic that the country of unlimited speed limits for cars has such slow speed limits for safe transport, but I guess that’s what carbrained thinking does
Fast ebikes are classed as mopeds as such you’ll have to use the roads and are banned from bicycle infrastructure. Pedelecs are classed as bikes and they’re not limited to 25km/h, they just won’t assist past that point. And frankly e-scooters at 20km/h are already plenty fast with those tiny wheels, ideally you don’t want to drive faster than you can sprint and while athletes are faster (Usain Bolt sprints 44km/h), 20 is a good estimate for your average moderately out of shape human.
What’s actually nuts about the speed limits 45km/h for mopeds and the like. 50km/h is ordinary city speeds and having people drive just a bit slower is inviting all kinds of unnecessary take-over manoeuvres.
Also just for completeness’ sake there’s plenty of speed limits for cars, also on the Autobahn, only about 57% are unlimited, 13% switch back and forth, unlimited doesn’t mean unlimited and the safety record isn’t bad in comparison to other countries. It could be improved but whether more limits would help is questionable.
it’s gonna be hilarious in a decade when all these trucknuts types have to give up their giant jacked up shitmobiles. vroom vroom while you can children.
Not to mention trucks have fewer regulations put in place. Car companies can make higher margins by selling those instead so they are pushing them really hard. What we need is more regulations put on larger vehicles, but you bet they are lobbying hard against that.
Bet you a soda you’re wrong. Writing’s on the wall chudly, your vroom vrooms are gonna go byebye one day. It’ll either be through regulation or lack of fuel availability, or the mobs that tear you out of your fucking cavemanmobile and beat you to death for continuing to make the atmosphere unlivable. Take your pick.
These devices probably cause < .1% of fatal pedestrian accidents and are electronically speed-limited, meanwhile for the device that causes 99% you put the responsibility of keeping speeds safe in the hands of individuals ranging from considerate over careless to outright methheads.
is often ridden on footpaths and walking areas
Why could that be? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that those are the only places where said 99% mode of transport responsible for 7,500 pedestrian deaths a year is banned and streets, where e-scooters should normally a go in cities, are designed for 2.5 tonne cars going 40?
The limit makes sense.
I mean yea, it does, but it is in essence just another concession to car dependency. Can’t curb pedestrian deaths because infrastructure is dogshit, drivers are careless and cars become more and more unsafe? Just regulate the hell out of every means of transport other than the one causing all the deaths and make getting from a to b as hard as possible for everyone not driving. Helps to a) blur the blame and cause some infighting (for instance, this post) and b) getting more people in cars must mean fewer pedestrian deaths right?? also more cars sold and no expensive infrastructure changes. Phew.
So how is it not a valid argument? It’s blatantly obvious that if cars were invented right now, with models as they are right now, safety concerns would be through the roof and they’d be regulated to hell and back with electronical speed-limits just like e-scooters are right now. The only reason cars are not limited in such a way is because they are a legacy device, part of America’s cultural identity and with a uncontrollably powerful lobby behind it so any attempt in that regard would immediately lose you public support. You’re asking for more well considered arguments, but I’m wondering what your argument is that cars should not be speed limited, other than that’s just the way it is, let everything concede to the status quo?
These devices probably cause < .1% of fatal pedestrian accidents
Percentage is meaningless without context. The stat you’re actually looking for is pedestrian deaths per mile. And it’s probably quite bad for these vehicles because they explicitly commingle with pedestrians.
Cars don’t spend very much time on parts of roads that have pedestrians on them, and when they do, there’s signage or traffic lights to help. Cars also have lights to help drivers see pedestrians and help pedestrians see cars, and generally make a lot of noise. You get none of these benefits with personal motorized vehicles. (Well ok, a scooter probably comes with some lights, but they’re probably also small and shitty and unregulated, so they don’t really count…)
Note that cars are heavily regulated, have speed limits, collision regulations, are required to only operate on designated paths and require training to operate.
Meanwhile the scooters can be used by anyone without licensing, have no speedometer, and can go anywhere without a pedestrian even having a clue a scooter might be coming.
Things could be better, but in these areas frankly an even lower speed limit would not make cars that much safer, and you’d be better off without roads in some areas and poof, cars would be gone. However electric scooters would still be zipping around.
Then use a fucking ebike? Motorized vehicles dont belong on sidewalks, period. How the fuck are people gonna walk to work in a BUSINESS DISTRICT if there’s scooters saturating the sidewalk?
They have to go on bicycle lanes and streets (where there is no bicycle lane) here in Germany. Makes sense tbh. Cars should be slowed down to 30km/h in settlements though imo. Going on a 50km/h street is neither safe for bicycle, nor e-scooters, nor for crossing pedestrians.
And they are great ways of transportation. Grant us public transport users so much more independency.
They should introduce enforced signal lights though (only some have them). That is my only real concern here. Signalling with the arm is just not safe on a e-scooter.
I drive a scooter and don’t own a car. But this is the sort of braindead post that will likely drive me to block this community. It’s an embarrassment to anybody who can think logically.
It’s also dumb because there’s no way that 6800 pound truck is going 0-60 in 4 seconds. They even put a slower time on the allegedly 400lb-lighter truck with more horsepower. If I’m wrong about that guesstimate, then oh well, the big trucks are stupid anyway.
Both of the trucks have a 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds apparently. The heavier truck being an EV is why it can match the other due to having full torque available and not needing to shift.
It’s also frustrating because it directly undermines the cause. There is absolutely more reliance on cars than there should be. There absolutely are more people buying big trucks than need them. There are so many valid arguments to make, so many thoughtful points to bring up.
But if the arguments and content being presented are factually incorrect, if they contain erroneous arguments or irrelevant comparisons, then it’s easy for people who don’t agree with the entire premise to just dismiss it as nonsense. This convinces no one, and worse, it may actively convince people that people who want to reduce usage of vehicles are stupid.
Our society has a problem with making everything absolutes. Trevor Noah had a great comment once about this where he brought up cats vs dogs and he asked why society suggests we have to pick one and can’t just like both.
Because of that, any dissent or criticism is seen as being against something. You think nuclear energy should be encouraged? Clearly you just want to drill for more oil and spew as much carbon as possible! You think this meme is an utterly illogical and dishonest comparison? Well clearly you must support the ubiquity of oversized cars with poor efficiency, and you don’t think our cities need more transportation options or walk ability!
All of this is to say, you’re right on the money. We have to call out bullshit like this when we see it on “our side” and criticize it as ridiculous. We need to recognize that OP is well intentioned, but this is a nonsensical/extreme take. Extremism forms when these people don’t get called out and a group chastises internal criticism.
Yeah, in general. Cars are not allowed to drive on sidewalks under most if not all circumstances. The point is that e-scooters have their restrictions for a reason, regardless of any whataboutism relating to cars. We want walkable cites, not e-scootable.
No clue what that street sigh means, but I guess it’s supposed to signify a shared space?
The point is that e-scooters have their restrictions for a reason, regardless of any whataboutism relating to cars.
I mean if sneezing at running speed of physically unfit person is so terrible, then why the fuck cars are not hardlimited to 10 km/h?
No clue what that street sigh means, but I guess it’s supposed to signify a shared space?
Kinda (article from where I took sign). Here it means transit traffic(driving through) is not allowed, speed is limited to walking speed(which in my country defined as 20km/h) and vehicles should yield to any pedestrians. Usually it is placed around micro-district where internal roads are connected to two or more city highways.
Only at specific points where a car crossing a sidewalk is expected, such as a turn in to a driveway, or an active emergency that would require the car to cross onto the pavement. Drivers can’t just yeet themselves across the pavement for no reason.
I mean if sneezing at running speed of physically unfit person is so terrible, then why the fuck cars are not hardlimited to 10 km/h?
Because drivers have to go though training and always have the potential of having their license revoked. Not anyone can just walk up to a car dealership and walk out with a car and no understanding of road law. Divers can just be trusted more than people using other modes of transport, which is why they get to move faster.
And again, whataboutism. Being the lesser of two evils is not the same as being acceptable.
In denser commerical areas, up to and even exceeding 50% of the sidewalk space can be driveways and entrance ways for cars. Add that many of this style of road can be 4+ lanes and 60+ km/h traffic. There is a lot of potential conflict areas, drivers often enter these driveways exceeding speeds safe for pedestrianized areas and these roads are designed for drivers to see other cars, not notice pedestrians.
As for trusting drivers due to their “training” most drivers are taught once while they are a teenager/young adult, pass some short practical tests (maybe 1 hour total time of testing) and are now trusted for a lifetime of driving. They never get retested despite change in driving laws, car technology, changes to their physicsl or mental health, or time since their last test. Driving infractions are paid off by monetary fines and not dealt with by mandated retraining courses.
The existence of a driver’s lisence as proof of a safe driver means very little to the cyclist who got hit by a right turning vehicle thhat vehicle did not check their mirrors for a clear bicycle gutter.
They’re not supposed to do a lot of things, and yet they do all of those things. They speed, they overtake dangerously, they kill pedestrians and cyclists, they kill or injure other motorists.
“But there’s a rule against it” doesn’t resolve problems like all the pedestrian and cycling deaths that we seem to accept as a needful sacrifice to keep bad transport infra and as-is. There are also rules against scooters operating dangerously. I’m not sure why bigger, heavier, more-powerful vehicles ought not to be subject to similar kinds of controls scooters are
I get the point but fuck e scooters, especially rental ones. They don’t replace car journeys, they replace walking or bus/train journeys, all of which are better for the environment than an escooter or ebike.
That is not true in places with poor public transport. They are used in place of cars by many for their daily commute where I live and they are not going walking distances.
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