Are they the new modern moloch?
If you don’t know about the terror of cars being introduced this 99pi episode is pretty good.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...
Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
61–70 of 193 posts
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's getting better, but a lot of places still don't have bike lanes. I'll ride on the sidewalk if I don't feel safe in the road, but I'm extra careful when I do.
So basically, you make peds feel unsafe so that you can feel safe.
The risk of a fatality or life changing accident is much much higher for a cyclist colliding with a car, than it is for a pedestrian being hit by a bike
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#63I initially was bah humbugy about these scooters, but after reading an article that points out we have acres of space devoted to private automobiles, and that it really wouldn't be hard to accommodate these electric scooters, I changed my mind. They look fun, they seem more flexible than the hard-wired go-bike stations, and they don't seem super expensive. It's pretty obvious that our cities are broken, and SF needs…
>As for the self righteousness of "only peds belong on sidewalks", I get tired of that. I strongly disagree with this. I've owned an electric scooter for over a year now and I learned real fast that it's super dangerous to ride on the sidewalk. The problem with pedestrians is that they are not looking out for scooters. People will wander into your path and depending on how fast you're going you may collide. Also you…
That's exactly the situation in China. When you are on the sidewalk you must walk in a straight line. If you make any sudden moves to the left or right then you are liable to get run over. You can't even hear the electric scooters and drivers here go way too fast. I don't wish them on Americans.
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#64I initially was bah humbugy about these scooters, but after reading an article that points out we have acres of space devoted to private automobiles, and that it really wouldn't be hard to accommodate these electric scooters, I changed my mind. They look fun, they seem more flexible than the hard-wired go-bike stations, and they don't seem super expensive. It's pretty obvious that our cities are broken, and SF needs…
I have more sympathy for pedestrians. They go around 2-3mph. Auto traffic around 25-50. Bikes and scooters are way closer to cars than pedestrians. So, its a matter of risking the safety of cyclist, or pedestrians. No clear win there I can see.
This is a completely irrational way to look at it.
The risk of a pedestrian fatality posed by a collision with a car travelling 30kmh is closer to the risk from a car going 5kmh than that of a car going 50kmh.
Look at the chart here:
http://www.victoriawalks.org.au/safe_speed/
The risk from speed is non-linear.
Risk the pedestrians in speed zone greater than 30kmh, because risk of fatal injury is far lower.
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#65These Electric Scooters in San Francisco have become a total nuisance. I've seen quite a few riders ride them on the sidewalks and 1 person even ran into a dude on a wheelchair who was trying to get onto the sidewalk after crossing the road on his wheelchair. The last safe place for Pedestrians and disabled persons -- the Sidewalk -- is under attack. The startups that have created this nuisance also park these scoote…
Police just need to start issuing tickets. Seems like a solid and easy revenue stream. Both riding on the sidewalk and riding without a helmet is illegal. Haven't seen any rider wearing one. CA Law: "An operator of a motorized scooter must be at least 16 years old, possess a valid drivers license or instruction permit, and wear a helmet. A motorized scooter may be operated on a bicycle path, trail or bikeway, but not…
What do you do when you get to a 35mph zone with no bike lane?
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#66PRESS RELEASE AS OF Apr 25, 2018@9:03:38 PM PT
~~~
Hello,
My name is Nate Matherson, and my company runs The Student Loan Report.
We created The Student Loan Report in 2016 as a source for news on the student loan industry, financial aid, and scholarships. At the time, we were building a marketplace for student loans, LendEDU, and felt we could contribute to the conversation. Especially because each of us had deep and personal experience finding student loans from trustworthy lenders. Personally, I graduated from college with over $50,000 in student loan debt. Today, I am still working to repay the majority of that debt.
As we prepared to launch The Student Loan Report, we debated who should author it, and felt that it was really a blend of our personal experiences and perspectives that would create the best source material, so we created a pen name of “Drew Cloud,” and conceived a background that we felt personified a lot of the perseverance we hoped to inspire with The Student Loan Report. When we pictured what Drew Cloud looked like, we pictured a friend of ours from college, so we used his photo (with his permission) to round out the pen name.
We used this character of “Drew Cloud” as the primary author of the site -- a shared pen name through which we could share experiences and information related to the challenges college students face while funding their education. There were also other pen names used to publish content on the site. The thoughts, stories, and opinions come from the actual experiences of our team. We have always held ourselves to high standards of content quality -- all of the data we published on The Student Loan Report was vetted, accurate, and licensed from the related polling companies.
Now that you have that background, and now that I have been able to reflect on how we got here, I want to apologize for a couple things:
(1) We never disclosed that “Drew Cloud” was a pen name that (represented a group of us writing these posts. I really regret that. (We are proud of our personal backgrounds and where they have brought (us today. We should’ve chosen to be clear about who was authoring the (posts. We have made a change on the site, effective immediately, to (use each author’s real name for every post. We will also (retroactively notate posts by Drew Cloud.
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Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#67PRESS RELEASE AS OF Apr 25, 2018@9:03:38 PM PT ~~~ Hello, My name is Nate Matherson, and my company runs The Student Loan Report. We created The Student Loan Report in 2016 as a source for news on the student loan industry, financial aid, and scholarships. At the time, we were building a marketplace for student loans, LendEDU, and felt we could contribute to the conversation. Especially because each of us had deep an…
You likely intended to post this to a different submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16926859
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#68The maximum deceleration of a vehicle is g times the tangent of the angle from the center of mass to the front wheel contact point.
On a sidewalk, a safe stopping distance is about 1 meter. Because of the small angle, safe speed for scooters and skateboards is about the same as walking.
Also, the small non-pneumatic wheels are easily stopped by cracks and small objects.
They are far less safe than bicycles, which are excluded from sidewalks, and riding them on roads with vehicle traffic is suicidal. I guarantee that this will be born out by accident data soon.
I’ve spent years of my life on the road by my own power, and I am certain that I would be dead many times over if I were on a scooter instead of a bicycle.
When the streets of SF are wide open because the cars got kicked out, ride whatever you want. Until then, ride a bike. Ride a big long frame with steel-spoked wheels. E-bike if you must, and don’t mind me trying to keep up with you with an aging meat motor.
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#69I'm frankly amazed these things aren't instantly stripped for their batteries. How long does an unattended bicycle last in San Francisco? Minutes?
Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced
#70In this click bait only 6 short paragraphs are about scooters. Remanining 8 are about cars history.