Scooters powering down the pavement
I wish Seattle would do the same.
Paris says au revoir to rental e-scooters
They’re a menace. It’s like allowing people to drive their cars on the sidewalks.
A ban on rental electric scooters has come into effect in Paris in response to a rising number of people being injured and killed in the French capital.
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Paris is now one of the first capitals to have outlawed the rented electric vehicles, just five years after being one of the first to adopt them.
Come on, Seattle, do the same.
As a cyclist of the traditional variety, I am more than a little peeved by the way electric “personal vehicles” like e-scooters are crowding out our space. Forty years campaigning for cycle paths, only to be squeezed to the side by a new kind of motorised transport – that gets one’s goat.
Nor do I take kindly to what – as a father of young children – I have in recent years witnessed all too regularly: scooters powering down the pavement and requiring urgent avoidance. A good friend of mine broke a rib when he was knocked over by an e-scooter in Paris. This was last year, and it still hurts when he coughs.
Pedestrians on the sidewalk. Everyone else – including people riding bicycles – on the street.
Strongly agree. In my city they’re not legally allowed on sidewalks, only on streets or bike lanes/paths, but compliance seems low. Not to mention the hazard of parked scooters dropped any which way or abandoned in unexpected places (I dodged one in the middle of a bridge last night!). In Berlin and other cities this has been a huge problem for people with mobility or sight issues, having to navigate around dozens of scooters dropped on the sidewalks.
One minor plus: the scooters here have automatic head and taillights, so at least you can see them at night when they’re moving. This is a significant improvement over 80% of my fellow cyclists who do not appear to realize that it gets dark fast this time of year. September is the worst month for cyclists travelling stealth.
Indeed. In theory they’re not allowed on the sidewalks here, and they have a little notice on them saying so, but compliance is almost non-existent.
I hate how the rest of us are all just supposed to trust in the skill and care of these riders who treat pedestrians like a slalom course.
SAME.
They’re allowed on sidewalks here and they’ve been a bigger threat than cars… Nearly been run down more than once.
The companies should be forced to pay for a network of sensors that can track if their scooters are used on the sidewalks; a “ping” results in an immediate citation against the current renter. Multiple offenses in the same day result in the scooter being unable to accelerate, only brake or idle, until it comes to a stop, and then the rider also has to pay the company for the retrieval. It wouldn’t even have to be a huge fine to be effective, if it was nearly universal for violators to be busted. Consistency of punishment does far more than severity, in terms of deterrence.
Good plan.
my only caveat to the “no bikes on sidewalks” rule is in many suburban areas pedestrians are rare or non existent. And traffic engineers creating four (or six) lane “ stroads”* with real speeds in excess of 45 mph means it is a brave cyclist indeed who “follows the law”
I am a very traffic tolerant cyclist, but even I occasionally hop on the safer sidewalks. Never buzz pedestrians, which is more than I can say for many troo bloo Americannn patriots in their 6500 pound trucks. And I can’t blair the “unamerican” parents who refuse to load their kids into the suv for the 1.5 mile trip to school. Hard to complain about families and kids on sidewalks.
* city streets designed like rural highways whose only design parameter is moving traffic quickly.
Oh funny you should mention it – I just spent the afternoon in a suburb of Seattle, going by bus, to visit a favorite park on a bay of Lake Washington, with boardwalks through marshes. Waiting for the first bus of the three it took to get back, I noticed yet again, as I do every time I explore a suburb, that horrible “main streets in the suburbs must all be all-but-freeways” situation. You’re right, nobody wants to ride a bike on that, because it’s not safe. This particular one has a bike lane, and people were using it, so well done Kirkland.