e-scooter trial

[Pickled Onion]

Offs

News yesterday—some people said they were *almost* knocked down by someone on an escooter.
Escooter trial halted.

Not news yesterday—a colleague of mine was *actually* knocked down by an Uber driver on a pedestrian crossing.
No one really gives a shit

News today—escooter riders seen mounting the pavement.
Escooter company to make big changes to stop this.

Not news today— millions of drivers mount the pavement with their several tonnes of car, leave it in the way, break the paving
No one really gives a shit.

[Kim]

News yesterday—some people said they were *almost* knocked down by someone on an escooter.

"Almost knocked down" as applied to out-group users of wheeled transport (cycles, scooters, skateboards, etc) seems to be a BRITISH cultural meme, which can mean everything from an actual near miss to "I saw someone riding a bike!".  I don't doubt they're terrified (I've seen the way that pedestrians leap in random directions on shared paths when you ring your bell from a polite distance), but I do wonder how much of that fear is based in reality rather than - say - clickbait...

[toontra]

Offs

News yesterday—some people said they were *almost* knocked down by someone on an escooter.
Escooter trial halted.

Not news yesterday—a colleague of mine was *actually* knocked down by an Uber driver on a pedestrian crossing.
No one really gives a shit

News today—escooter riders seen mounting the pavement.
Escooter company to make big changes to stop this.

Not news today— millions of drivers mount the pavement with their several tonnes of car, leave it in the way, break the paving
No one really gives a shit.

Some weird logic there.  E-scooters ridden irresponsibly pose an additional risk to pedestrians.  Just because some car drivers act like twats doesn't justify adding to the threat - perceived or real.

I've seen some really bad e-scooter action in London in recent weeks.  Definitely unnerving for peds and potentially bloody dangerous.

[DuncanM]

Fitting plates to them seems to be logical - they are being operated under a variation of the motor vehicle laws and require a driving licence to operate.
That said, it sounds like it's just the rental company doing it - they can then identify riders who are complained about and ban them from the network.

Some complaints will be justified and some not. Today I saw some pretty anti-social e-bike riding by someone with a hood up riding a beat up old mountainbike with some sort of conversion duct taped to the main triangle (including blatting along the pavement at >30mph). No incident occurred, but I can't imagine the pedestrians he close passed are going to be very well disposed towards that sort of behaviour. The e-scooters I've seen around (all illegal ones) seem to be ridden mostly sensibly (if ridden by adults, children are another story). The e-skateboards are a menace!

[Kim]

Whereas I've never seen an e-skateboard ridden anything but sensibly.  It's non-electric BSOs that are favoured for reckless riding.  (Scooters are somewhere in the middle, and e-bikes are usually^[1] ridden sensibly, even if they're sometimes illegally fast.)

Almost as if it's not the means of transport that's the problem, isn't it?


_{[1] There's an old woman I see locally who rides a folding e-bike with poor luggage provision that she can barely control, often but not exclusively on the busy pavement (presumably through fear of traffic on Silly Oak High Street).}

[DuncanM]

Almost as if it's not the means of transport that's the problem, isn't it?

Indeed. Idiots are going to idiot.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The vast majority of e-scooters I've seen have been ridden on the carriageway.

[Pickled Onion]

.
Some weird logic there.  E-scooters ridden irresponsibly pose an additional risk to pedestrians.  Just because some car drivers act like twats doesn't justify adding to the threat - perceived or real.

I've seen some really bad e-scooter action in London in recent weeks.  Definitely unnerving for peds and potentially bloody dangerous.

The weird logic is banning something because a handful of users are twats. I see “potentially bloody dangerous” driving every single day—no one is advocating banning cars.

[fd3]

I think the stats suggest that there are more unlicensed/uninsured drivers than there are cyclists in total.

It does seem like energy badly spent trying to legislate/police e-scooters when we still have the #1 killer on the loose.  But then in a year's time we could have e-scooter louts all over the place, making pavements unsafe for everyone...

[grams]

They aren't allowed on pavements, and the legal ones are speed limited to 15 mph.

All the ones that aren't part of the rental trials are completely illegal to use in the country except on private property.

[Pickled Onion]

They should be allowed on cycle paths an roads, the same as ebikes. I understand the worry about riders weaving around pedestrians but I don’t get the antipathy coming from cyclists. More sustainable transport on the roads has to be a good thing.

[fd3]

^95% agree.
It's "more sustainable" transport as opposed to more "sustainable transport".  the main thing atm is less cars, so more space on roads for more road users.  I don't get why something that is slower than a bike needs such harsh legislating.

[quixoticgeek]

Isn't it that they are less controllable than a bike? The stopping distance on them, as well as the chances of face planting being higher always struck me as the weak points.

If the motorcar were to be introduced today, it would never last the H&S risk analysis...

J

[aidan.f]

I just think it's a shame that we have to keep trying to substitute high tech solutions for the most efficient means of personal transport ever invented.. now go on what would that be?

[Cudzoziemiec]

^95% agree.
It's "more sustainable" transport as opposed to more "sustainable transport".  the main thing atm is less cars, so more space on roads for more road users.  I don't get why something that is slower than a bike needs such harsh legislating.

I'm not sure that an electric scooter is slower than a non-electric bike as ridden by most people. But also, I don't think that's the reason for the legislation. It's mostly neophobia. Actually, that's unfair, as the illegality of the non-hire e-scooters is ignored in 99% of cases. There's an effort to create a commercial space for hire companies, but they'd do better to encompass them all under an adaptation of EAPC regs. <ob cynic>Maybe Dominic Cummings has a mate in the hire companies.</ob cynic>

[Kim]

Isn't it that they are less controllable than a bike? The stopping distance on them, as well as the chances of face planting being higher always struck me as the weak points.

The Voi scooter was certainly twitchy and small-wheeled, but didn't feel particularly face-planty (and I say this as a habitual recumbent rider who finds a typical safety bicycle alarmingly face-planty when I haven't ridden one for a while).  I suspect this was a combination of having a *lot* of battery mass low down, and braking performance somewhere between 'Boris Bike' and 'Brompton'.  I can't imagine they handle a decent surface imprefection at all gracefully though.  Which makes riding them on pavements particularly hazardous.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Judging from your photo, it seems to have smaller wheels than most but certainly not all of the ones I see. It also looks a bit smaller overall though.

[Kim]

Judging from your photo, it seems to have smaller wheels than most but certainly not all of the ones I see. It also looks a bit smaller overall though.

I can see how it look like that in the photo, but it's definitely a chunkier example of the species.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Generally there seem to be two types that I see: some are like a micro scooter with batteries, some are more like a Vespa that's lost its seat and engine (and therefore its bodywork and thus its Vespish style – though I've seen one or two with a seat, but not Audrey Hepburn or Gregory Peck).

[andrewc]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/electric-scooter-rider-causes-traffic-18985671     

[Kim]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/electric-scooter-rider-causes-traffic-18985671     

Yeah, just look at all that chaos he's causing... 

[grams]

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/electric-scooter-rider-causes-traffic-18985671     

Look at that idiot not using a car like a normal person! Idiot!

You're allowed to ride a bike through that tunnel off peak, which given an e-scooter is basically a bike in every way that matters (apart from the silly legal situation) that article is completely drivel.

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Dangerously close to the tunnel walls." Wow.

[Kim]

"Dangerously close to the tunnel walls." Wow.

They've obviously never ridden through Netherton...

[MikeFromLFE]

I've just discovered that e-scooters are not permitted on canal towpaths (well, Canal & River Trust towpaths in England & Wales) : https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/news/position-statement-on-e-scooters
Seems even handed enough to me, but how it'll ever be enforced is a different question.