As a pedestrian walking on already crowded sidewalks, I loathe sharing the sidewalk with scooters - even entirely people-powered ones.
That extra speed makes them scary and dangerous, and the people riding them never seem to be considerate of the people they’re sharing the sidewalk with. Not quite as bad as bicycles on the sidewalk, but approaching the same category.
IMO we should be repurposing roads not aggressively to make room for cyclists and other modes of transportation like scooters.
If scooters are too slow to be safe in the bike lane, make an additional scooter lane and remove some free automobile storage on public property - which is not in fact a birthright.
Spot on regarding cars parked on public property. Think how much space there would be for cycle lanes and lanes for anything else like scooters if we got rid of all the car storage.
I think scooters are fast enough in my experience to be in the bike lane or on the right side of the road with bikes as in many US cities. They DO NOT belong on the side walk.
I think re bikes on the sidewalk, I'm mostly in favor of a maximum speed limit for sidewalks, as well as general rules regarding if the sidewalk is full of people. I am a cyclist though in a US city with a load of "share the road" signs but few bike lanes and shitty drivers, so I find the sidewalk is safe in certain parts, and of course, no one walks in the US. I walk much less nowadays because I find it's safer for me if I bike.
After spending a few days in Santa Monica and using Birds, I mostly agree. Scooters can be used safely on sidewalks, but many people - probably most - don’t do that. They go as fast as they can.
The only thing close to a close call I had in three days was a kid running out from around the corner of a building. I was able to stop in time, but to be fair I was in a roadway, not on a sidewalk, and I had slowed because I saw a blind corner coming up. A bicycle or car would have had a harder time stopping than I did, for that matter.
I also got to see a guy clothesline himself on a tree limb in Westwood. That looked like it hurt.
I just left Santa Monica yesterday and I saw the “birds” and the “lime-s” scooters. For the most part people were good with them, but that could be due to the fact you need a drivers license to operate them.
In contrast, in Sweden you would not need a drivers license for them, however due to the cycling infrastructure they would very likely be safe, people already drive petrol based mopeds on the cycling infrastructure with no license and do not get into accidents.
So I would argue that such devices would “live with the bikes” on any cycle infrastructure that exists, but otherwise on the roads. I wouldn’t enjoy sharing a walk path with a motor vehicle, nor would I enjoy riding an electric scooter on the road.
I feel like we should be pushing for more cycle ways if we want to be able to use this type of thing safely.
Cities, by which I mean the CBDs, shouldn't have thoroughfare car traffic going through them at all. Take the cars out of the equation and you suddenly get a lot more space and a lot more safety. Obviously it can't work for all roads in a CBD, but none of the compromises I see where there is still mixed traffic work. Unless you are in a car, no one wants to be around them, and in a CBD it is the minority that are in cars.
I own one of the Bird scooters (Xiaomi Mi) and I've been commuting with it every (week) day for the last month in Chicago. It's amazing for me, a bicyclist normally that would get too sweaty on the last mile of my commute.
I ride in the bike lanes and am faster than most bicyclists. I also feel safer as I am standing up and more easily visible to vehicles.
With all this being said, I avoid sidewalks as I don't think anything with wheels besides wheelchairs and strollers should be on sidewalks. I also biked for years on the streets and have a lot of experience. I don't think putting these things everywhere is a good idea unless we get rid of more cars.
Too many people are inexperienced with safely riding and it's way too convenient to jump on one and become a nuisance to others. I'm not sure what the answer is, though. Maybe people with enough time on Divvy bikes (our bike share system) get first dibs?
There are a shit ton of cars, a good number of bikes, and a minimal number of scooters.
I find it very difficult to believe that there are enough vehicles and lanes to have a separate bike and scooter lane and still have room for cars and pedestrians.
Besides which bikes and scooters are similar enough to share a lane.
I ride my electric unicycle at ~10 miles/hr on sidewalks.
Slightly faster than walking but way slower than a bike. I can stop instantly( unlike one wheels) an slow down to less than walking speed if needed. I don't see why I can't share the sidewalk with pedestrians.
oh yea you are right. sorry I misstated. 10 mph is the top speed on my segway one s1 and I never hit top speed on the sidewalk. So maybe around 6-7 mph which is twice the walking speed, ppl running for a workout overtake me.
Plenty of electric unicycles here in Norway and I would say that they are the only vehicles that should be allowed on the pavement/sidewalk/fortau. The mostly go only about as fast as a moderately fit jogger.
> As a pedestrian walking on already crowded sidewalks
The real pathology here is that we allow automobiles to pass so freely through anywhere lucky enough to have over-crowded sidewalks.
One can imagine a quieter, safer, more humane Midtown Manhattan in which scooters and bicycles and pedestrians coexist in harmony.
Instead one experiences the insane and constant honking of frustrated drivers, who, like a baby who doesn’t know why it cries, demand that their problems require the attention of your ears, too.
Move to Florence, Italy for few months to get rid of your fear of sharing sidewalk with two wheeled vehicles.
Even in densest foot traffic there you'll find a bicycle navigating safely between people or even full sized scooter. At first it looked bonkers for me but aftr few month it became natural as pedestrian and even as a cyclist.
This really isn't how they should be regulated, though - while I have yet to form an opinion on electric scooters, their impact should be evaluated and specific legislation enacted for them, rather than banning them wholesale with no consideration thanks to legal happenstance. That a law enacted nearly 200 years ago is being applied to vehicles significantly out of scope or intention of the original intent strikes me as a legislative failure, regardless of the merits or dangers of scooters on sidewalks.
Except that they are not significantly out of scope or intention. At time, there was a fair amount of innovation going on in the field, and the concept of people riding mechanical devices on the pavement already existed. The velocipede had already been around for nearing a couple of decades.
The reality is that the UK (and the US and anywhere else with a long tradition of relatively continuous and stable government) has lots of laws that are currently enforced that are dozens to hundreds of years old. In common law countries, we have laws that we can trace back many hundreds of years.
If you think a law is outmoded or no longer reflects society's values, then you have recourse: get it repealed or amended. Or flaunt the law and take your chances. People do that all the time, with greater or lesser degrees of success.
Societies ruled by law should not ignore old laws just because we think the original authors could not have possibly basic good judgments like, say, pedestrians should be safe on pedestrian thoroughfares.
The problem, of course, is that the signals and conventions you speak of only make sense at automobile scale. Drivers can (and obviously will) express outrage at scooters and jaywalkers and bicyclists and whatever else until our sun burns out and all life is gone, but non-drivers aren’t going to consistently follow rules that make no sense for the scale at which they’re operating.
The solution isn’t to get non-cars to act more like cars. The solution is to modify the streetscape to accommodate all viable modes. Drivers obviously aren’t going to like this, either, because they currently get so much deference that there’s basically no place to go but down.
The statement was made from the perspective of a pedestrian who grew up safely in a very non-pedestrian friendly and extremely congested city. There are ways in which pedestrians communicate with drivers to ensure both sides' safety. I've had no difficulty being a pedestrian or a driver in many countries while relying on these signals.
Except now, in cities and town small and large, all of a sudden there are electric powered vehicles doing between 15 MPH to 30 MPH on crowded sidewalks whose operators do not seem to understand sidewalks are for pedestrians. They also do not communicate with the pedestrians and others operators around them. Every day I witness collisions and near collisions, but none of that gets reported as widely or loudly as a car crash. This needs to stop.
If I have to choose between 19th century law versus trying to argue with every buzzing operator individually, I'll go for the 19th century law.
We agree that they shouldn't be on the sidewalks. We disagree on this:
> Every day I witness collisions and near collisions, but none of that gets reported as widely or loudly as a car crash. This needs to stop.
Everybody in this thread knows somebody who died or was severely injured in an automobile accident. It's obscene to compare their losses to the nuisance of scooter "near collisions."
This isn't an attack on you, personally. We've all become inured to the carnage, but sometimes it's worth taking a step back to remember that there's a reason we treat cars differently, one that renders arguments of the form, "but what about pedestrians who break the rules!?" inert.
I am not understanding what you are saying because it sounds like you are claiming it is OK for people on electric vehicles to slam into pedestrians in pedestrian crossings because a lot of people have died in accidents involving cars. And, keep in mind that a 180 lb male on an electric skateboard doing 25 MPH slamming head on into a little old lady crossing the street is more than an inconvenience. The fact that the operator decided to operate his vehicle in a pedestrian crossing adds insult to injury.
Another example: It is one thing when a motorcyclist decides to weave through cars in congested traffic ... A pedestrian can hear that approaching and, in my experience, motorcyclists do not think they have the right to ram into people. With a silent electric vehicle carrying your average entitled punk, the situation is different.
I have not seen one person operating such an electric vehicle who obeyed any rules. So, if there is a 19th century law that can be used to banish them, I support that.
Let's play a game. Here's what I want you to imagine:
- You're on a game show and your aim is to summarize my position in good faith
- If you get 70 out of 100 impartial observers to agree that your summary is a fair reading of my comments, then you get $100 thousand
- If fewer than 70 out of 100 agree, then you get nothing
- Do you think you'd still write down, "[I]t sounds like [he is] claiming it is OK for people on electric vehicles to slam into pedestrians in pedestrian crossings because a lot of people have died in accidents involving cars"?
Integrity is coming up with the same summary when there's no money on the line as you would on that game show.
I'm all for anything that can reduce the number of cars in European cities.
That said, whether they're explicitly forbidden in your country, or in a legal grey area, I think anyone riding these scooters is asking for trouble. If you do cause an accident, your personal liability insurance will not cover anything. Even if you aren't at fault, you are on a vehicle that has no legal category, no insurance, and is not supposed to be used on public roads. Given that some models go up to 50 km/h, this kind of risk sounds pretty insane.
We definitely need legislators to work things out before SV startups put them in the hands of unaware people.
Going at 50 km/h is a feat for many cyclists. It also requires a bit of effort or a hill. When you can turn a dial or press a lever and move fast, you become much less conscious of moving fast and this attitude can lead to causing much more harm.
Have you ridden a Bird/Lime/etc.? You don't accidentally go 50 km/h on one. If anything, I'm more likely to go too fast on my bike because they pick up speed going downhill much more easily.
Bicycles belong in a category that is properly defined by the law. Riding a bicycle is explicitly covered by your personal liability insurance. 45 km/h e-bikes have their own special category and need license, plate, registration and specific insurance.
I had no idea that electric scooters were a fad elsewhere, but the tone of this article makes me glad they aren't in the UK. The assumption seems to be that they'd be on the footpath, which just sounds crazy to me. As for the roads, I thought the pedelec compromise of not allowing throttle controls was quite sensible.
A Brompton bicycle weighs less than most electric scooters and isn't much more bulky. They're not cheap, but they're built to last and enormously popular amongst commuters. They now offer an electrically-assisted option, if that's your bag.
This is also the case for bicycles, however it's purpose is more about dissuading cyclists who don't consider themselves guests on the pavement:
> The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of traffic and who show consideration to other pavement users when doing so. Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required.
Pavements are for people, if you want to ride on it that is fine, but you have no right of way over people on foot.
The carriage law should not be removed outright but amended similarly while making it clear it's not ok to make pavements dangerous for pedestrians.
They should be glad their spaces aren't littered with these imported, rentable scooters, it's already happened with bicycles in various cities around the world and it's a mess.
This isn't unique to the UK. Small electric vehicles fall under motor vehicle regulations in New York state which also bans them from sidewalks. E-bikes, electric scooters, hoverboards, they're all supposed to be registered with the DMV for use on public roads.
> If any person shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers; or shall wilfully lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any such footpath or causeway; or shall tether any horse, ass, mule, swine, or cattle, on any highway, so as to suffer or permit the tethered animal to be thereon.
It seems like a step forward was made almost two centuries ago. Let's not take a step back.
It's illegal in the uk because here your desire for profit and your customers lack of regard for other people doesn't as yet override those other people's right to walk down the pavement unmolested.
We have cycle lanes and powered push bikes. If the output is less than 250w and can do no more 15mph then they can be used on the roads in cycle lanes without a licence or road tax.
This 1835 law is utterly sensible. Electric scooters on pedestrian paths ? No, just no. The only modes of transportation on pedestrian paths should be powered by your feet. We can allow powered wheelchairs for the disabled but that should be the upper limit. Why are pedestrians always the one to get the shaft in road 'innovation' ?
It isn't utterly sensible. Quite a lot of it was repealed in 1959. Including the parts about playing football. So legislators came to disagree with a fair amount of it over the years since.
> […] or shall play at Football or any other Game on any Part of the said Highways, to the Annoyance of any Passenger or Passengers […]
You have an issue with speed and size of someone on the footpaths, I could run fast and cause more problems than someone on a scooter on the path. Besides its not like Scooters will ever be that popular because people love transporting stuff around in their cars and they need/expect a certain level of protection from the elements which scooters, bikes and motorbikes will never exceed. Its a bit of a storm in a teacup which is why the UK police are not prosecuting electric scooter users at the moment.
Jogging on footpaths while respecting right of way is completely different from running helker-skelter, bumping and knocking people down. I hope we really don't need to debate the difference between the two.
Anecdotally, I’ve noticed a bunch of people using “scary”, “dangerous”, “hazard”, etc. a lot more recently. I wonder if there’s some sort of correlation with our helicopter parent upbringing and a desire for an entirely safe environment.
Personally, there’s a risk level that I’m content with living with and scooters on the pavement are beneath that.
This "hard, mechanised device" usually weighs around 10 kilos. So far I don't see any evidence from countries where electric scooters are legal that they've become any more of a problem than conventional means of transportation.
I've started watching scooter accidents on youtube. About half of them are scooter with scooter accidents. What surprised me was how casual everyone was. Are you ok? Yeah I'm ok. Totally different from car accidents.
Am I missing something with the UK definitions or are streets and pavement (sidewalk in US parlance) a complete apples and oranges comparison? Bicycling on the street is perfectly valid and sensible - especially since those are usually lower speed and congested areas in the first place. Replacing cars with bicycles eases congestion in dense cities. Replacing cars with bicycles on a highway would cause problems.
Similarly sidewalks are narrow and meant for pedestrian capable ranges of motion and speeds. I lean towards 'legalize electric scooters on the streets keep them the off the pavement unless the operator is disabled'.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 150 ms ] threadThat extra speed makes them scary and dangerous, and the people riding them never seem to be considerate of the people they’re sharing the sidewalk with. Not quite as bad as bicycles on the sidewalk, but approaching the same category.
IMO we should be repurposing roads not aggressively to make room for cyclists and other modes of transportation like scooters.
If scooters are too slow to be safe in the bike lane, make an additional scooter lane and remove some free automobile storage on public property - which is not in fact a birthright.
Also, everything that has an engine does not belong in the pedestrian zone.
I think re bikes on the sidewalk, I'm mostly in favor of a maximum speed limit for sidewalks, as well as general rules regarding if the sidewalk is full of people. I am a cyclist though in a US city with a load of "share the road" signs but few bike lanes and shitty drivers, so I find the sidewalk is safe in certain parts, and of course, no one walks in the US. I walk much less nowadays because I find it's safer for me if I bike.
The only thing close to a close call I had in three days was a kid running out from around the corner of a building. I was able to stop in time, but to be fair I was in a roadway, not on a sidewalk, and I had slowed because I saw a blind corner coming up. A bicycle or car would have had a harder time stopping than I did, for that matter.
I also got to see a guy clothesline himself on a tree limb in Westwood. That looked like it hurt.
In contrast, in Sweden you would not need a drivers license for them, however due to the cycling infrastructure they would very likely be safe, people already drive petrol based mopeds on the cycling infrastructure with no license and do not get into accidents.
So I would argue that such devices would “live with the bikes” on any cycle infrastructure that exists, but otherwise on the roads. I wouldn’t enjoy sharing a walk path with a motor vehicle, nor would I enjoy riding an electric scooter on the road.
I feel like we should be pushing for more cycle ways if we want to be able to use this type of thing safely.
People did treat them mostly like bikes. Bikes aren't allowed on the sidewalks either, but that's where many people ride them.
Pedestrian: 6KM/h bicycle: 18KM/h City scooters: 24 KM/h Fast city scooters: 42 KM/h Cars: 48 KM/h (50KM)
Unsure if 12, 30 and 36 must get a new category. For 12, niche electric vehicles usually are around that speed (e.g. mobility scooters, electric toys)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roads_Must_Roll
I ride in the bike lanes and am faster than most bicyclists. I also feel safer as I am standing up and more easily visible to vehicles.
With all this being said, I avoid sidewalks as I don't think anything with wheels besides wheelchairs and strollers should be on sidewalks. I also biked for years on the streets and have a lot of experience. I don't think putting these things everywhere is a good idea unless we get rid of more cars.
Too many people are inexperienced with safely riding and it's way too convenient to jump on one and become a nuisance to others. I'm not sure what the answer is, though. Maybe people with enough time on Divvy bikes (our bike share system) get first dibs?
I find it very difficult to believe that there are enough vehicles and lanes to have a separate bike and scooter lane and still have room for cars and pedestrians.
Besides which bikes and scooters are similar enough to share a lane.
The real pathology here is that we allow automobiles to pass so freely through anywhere lucky enough to have over-crowded sidewalks.
One can imagine a quieter, safer, more humane Midtown Manhattan in which scooters and bicycles and pedestrians coexist in harmony.
Instead one experiences the insane and constant honking of frustrated drivers, who, like a baby who doesn’t know why it cries, demand that their problems require the attention of your ears, too.
Even in densest foot traffic there you'll find a bicycle navigating safely between people or even full sized scooter. At first it looked bonkers for me but aftr few month it became natural as pedestrian and even as a cyclist.
If you think a law is outmoded or no longer reflects society's values, then you have recourse: get it repealed or amended. Or flaunt the law and take your chances. People do that all the time, with greater or lesser degrees of success.
Societies ruled by law should not ignore old laws just because we think the original authors could not have possibly basic good judgments like, say, pedestrians should be safe on pedestrian thoroughfares.
The solution isn’t to get non-cars to act more like cars. The solution is to modify the streetscape to accommodate all viable modes. Drivers obviously aren’t going to like this, either, because they currently get so much deference that there’s basically no place to go but down.
Except now, in cities and town small and large, all of a sudden there are electric powered vehicles doing between 15 MPH to 30 MPH on crowded sidewalks whose operators do not seem to understand sidewalks are for pedestrians. They also do not communicate with the pedestrians and others operators around them. Every day I witness collisions and near collisions, but none of that gets reported as widely or loudly as a car crash. This needs to stop.
If I have to choose between 19th century law versus trying to argue with every buzzing operator individually, I'll go for the 19th century law.
> Every day I witness collisions and near collisions, but none of that gets reported as widely or loudly as a car crash. This needs to stop.
Everybody in this thread knows somebody who died or was severely injured in an automobile accident. It's obscene to compare their losses to the nuisance of scooter "near collisions."
This isn't an attack on you, personally. We've all become inured to the carnage, but sometimes it's worth taking a step back to remember that there's a reason we treat cars differently, one that renders arguments of the form, "but what about pedestrians who break the rules!?" inert.
Another example: It is one thing when a motorcyclist decides to weave through cars in congested traffic ... A pedestrian can hear that approaching and, in my experience, motorcyclists do not think they have the right to ram into people. With a silent electric vehicle carrying your average entitled punk, the situation is different.
I have not seen one person operating such an electric vehicle who obeyed any rules. So, if there is a 19th century law that can be used to banish them, I support that.
You just don’t like the double-standard I’m defending.
- You're on a game show and your aim is to summarize my position in good faith
- If you get 70 out of 100 impartial observers to agree that your summary is a fair reading of my comments, then you get $100 thousand
- If fewer than 70 out of 100 agree, then you get nothing
- Do you think you'd still write down, "[I]t sounds like [he is] claiming it is OK for people on electric vehicles to slam into pedestrians in pedestrian crossings because a lot of people have died in accidents involving cars"?
Integrity is coming up with the same summary when there's no money on the line as you would on that game show.
That said, whether they're explicitly forbidden in your country, or in a legal grey area, I think anyone riding these scooters is asking for trouble. If you do cause an accident, your personal liability insurance will not cover anything. Even if you aren't at fault, you are on a vehicle that has no legal category, no insurance, and is not supposed to be used on public roads. Given that some models go up to 50 km/h, this kind of risk sounds pretty insane.
We definitely need legislators to work things out before SV startups put them in the hands of unaware people.
However, they are definitely too fast for sidewalks and they're not even safe unless the sidewalk is free of imperfections such as holes and bumps.
Bicycles belong in a category that is properly defined by the law. Riding a bicycle is explicitly covered by your personal liability insurance. 45 km/h e-bikes have their own special category and need license, plate, registration and specific insurance.
How many people do you think have personal liability insurance in Europe?
If you use a bike on public roads and want to be insured, you can. A scooter, your insurer will tell you they cannot do anything.
https://www.brompton.com/the-bike
> The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of traffic and who show consideration to other pavement users when doing so. Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required.
Pavements are for people, if you want to ride on it that is fine, but you have no right of way over people on foot.
The carriage law should not be removed outright but amended similarly while making it clear it's not ok to make pavements dangerous for pedestrians.
> If any person shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers; or shall wilfully lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any such footpath or causeway; or shall tether any horse, ass, mule, swine, or cattle, on any highway, so as to suffer or permit the tethered animal to be thereon.
It seems like a step forward was made almost two centuries ago. Let's not take a step back.
Instead we have Vehicle Excise Duty, VED, which is a tax on emissions. Which is why electric vehicles pay no VED.
Scooters can't because they are throttle operated, there is a problem with the law in this regard.
> […] or shall play at Football or any other Game on any Part of the said Highways, to the Annoyance of any Passenger or Passengers […]
Personally, there’s a risk level that I’m content with living with and scooters on the pavement are beneath that.
Similarly sidewalks are narrow and meant for pedestrian capable ranges of motion and speeds. I lean towards 'legalize electric scooters on the streets keep them the off the pavement unless the operator is disabled'.