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Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

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Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#141

Post by Zanni »

klez wrote: post #111
Zanni wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I walk commute often, and especially when I'm traveling. Sure, cars are dangerous, and bicycles are often irresponsible, but pedestrians are the worst. They'll walk four abreast, gather in large groups at chokepoints, block traffic to take photos, stop for no reason. And no one really cares because most of this bad behavior is limited to sidewalks, so it only affects other pedestrians. But it makes it damn difficult…

You should take a walk in Venice. All the problems you mentioned plus the peculiarity that there's only the "sidewalk".

It's been awhile, but I've been to Venice. Vegas and London were much worse, in my experience.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#142

Post by rsynnott »

closeparen wrote: post #113
arnoooooo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the one choosing to drive a dangerous vehicle, why should other people be responsible ?

If your society considers a particular transportation mode so antisocial that people who choose it are automatically guilty regardless of the specifics of the incident, no one should ever make that mode choice. It's tantamount to a ban. You aren't perfect, and other people sometimes behave far outside the bounds of what any reasonable person expects (and sometimes do so deliberately to commit insurance fraud). If the…

> At speed, injuring the pedestrians who get in your way is an inevitability.

Solution: _don't cycle on the bloody footpath_; that's not what it's for. Cycle in bike lanes, or, if unavailable, the road.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#143

Post by jessaustin »

rangibaby wrote: post #127
closeparen wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 seconds of Googling suggests (and a comment upthread) suggest that a defense based on reasonable expectations and circumstances beyond one's control is available to drivers in The Netherlands. The stakes are also much lower when the thing you're assigning is an insurance company payout. Cyclists presumably aren't insured when they hit pedestrians. If there were no defense available, cycling would be a bad idea. Fo…

> Cyclists presumably aren't insured when they hit pedestrians. It is compulsory in some places in Japan. ¥4,000 ($40) per year pays out up to 3 billion yen ($3,000,000) in case you hit someone.

We'll never see this requirement in USA because it would be proof salient to everyone of how much more dangerous driving is than cycling.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#144

Post by closeparen »

rangibaby wrote: post #125
closeparen wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your society considers a particular transportation mode so antisocial that people who choose it are automatically guilty regardless of the specifics of the incident, no one should ever make that mode choice. It's tantamount to a ban. You aren't perfect, and other people sometimes behave far outside the bounds of what any reasonable person expects (and sometimes do so deliberately to commit insurance fraud). If the…

> At speed, injuring the pedestrians who get in your way is an inevitability Well, that's the point. You are supposed to be riding or driving at a speed that you can safely stop if you need to. This is the same in every country, right? > Japan is messaging that Japanese people ought to stay far, far away from bicycling unless they have particularly extreme appetite for risk. Bicycling to work or school is very common…

>stop if you need to

If you're on a 45mph road and someone puts themselves in your path 10 feet ahead, no, we don't say that you should have actually been going 5mph just in case something like this was going to happen. You're required to yield at crosswalks, but there's an expectation that mutual acknowledgement between you and the pedestrian happens at a reasonable distance before the pedestrian enters the roadway. Similarly, if someone enters an intersection on red, you have a duty to try and avoid the crash, but if it's too late, that's on them.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#145

Post by jessaustin »

fiter wrote: post #79
randyrand wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

walking 3-4, scooter 10-15, cars 25-60. each is about 3x more than the previous. But it's a stupid comparison for safety. Colliding with a scooter will rarely be fatal, regardless of the 3x. But cyclist often get killed.

The chance of collision should also be considered. Since intersection collisions are the same or worse for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, we should consider overtaking while there is insufficient space which seems like it would be a strong function of extra space on either the road or the sidewalk and relative speeds. Im not sure why you listed 60 as I'm not really aware of any roads with such a limit that also re…

All the roads around my house have a 55 limit. If I didn't bike on them I wouldn't bike at all.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#146

Post by closeparen »

jessaustin wrote: post #143
rangibaby wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cyclists presumably aren't insured when they hit pedestrians. It is compulsory in some places in Japan. ¥4,000 ($40) per year pays out up to 3 billion yen ($3,000,000) in case you hit someone.

We'll never see this requirement in USA because it would be proof salient to everyone of how much more dangerous driving is than cycling.

We're under no illusions that cycling presents a danger to others in the same way that driving does. When we say cycling is unsafe, we mean it's unsafe for the cyclist.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#147

Post by jessaustin »

closeparen wrote: post #146
jessaustin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll never see this requirement in USA because it would be proof salient to everyone of how much more dangerous driving is than cycling.

We're under no illusions that cycling presents a danger to others in the same way that driving does. When we say cycling is unsafe, we mean it's unsafe for the cyclist.

The point is that your experience in a society that privileges automobile driving has left you with misleading impressions of how other societies function. In other places poor drivers are held responsible for their poor driving, and the sky has not fallen.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#148

Post by closeparen »

coatmatter wrote: post #128
closeparen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scooters going painfully slow in bike lanes will not be terribly different from cars stopping in them. Either way, you have to merge into traffic to pass.

I bet that in places such a Utrecht and Groningen, scooters are much less in vogue since the default option available to both young and old is the bicycle. This is another case of Silicon Valley looking at using more tech to solve a societal and political problem. However, unlike Tesla/Uber/Waymo et al, it's a little more grounded.

One of the main uses cases for these scooters is to connect to Caltrain, which doesn't have anywhere close to 1:1 bike racks:seats.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#149

Post by closeparen »

jessaustin wrote: post #147
closeparen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're under no illusions that cycling presents a danger to others in the same way that driving does. When we say cycling is unsafe, we mean it's unsafe for the cyclist.

The point is that your experience in a society that privileges automobile driving has left you with misleading impressions of how other societies function. In other places poor drivers are held responsible for their poor driving, and the sky has not fallen.

> In other places poor drivers are held responsible for their poor driving

As they should be everywhere. What seems crazy, though, is the belief that every collision is necessarily an instance of a poor driver committing poor driving, with no reference to how a reasonable person would have handled the situation differently.

Re: Electric scooter “mayhem” sounds like when cars were introduced

#150

Post by bkor »

closeparen wrote: post #112
bkor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few exceptions to it. However, that's exactly how it works in The Netherlands. Biker needs to watch out for a pedestrian. Car for bikes and pedestrians, etc. If a car could've avoided the accident no matter if a cyclist was doing something wrong, car is at fault. This change prevented loads of accidents. Before if a cyclist did something wrong the general thought was "cyclist should've paid attention". Bu…

>"If a car could've avoided the accident" That's a pretty crucial distinction from strict liability, and is much closer to what we have in the US (at least on paper, you have a duty to avert a collision if you can, regardless of right of way). Unless you mean the most trivial sense of "you could have avoided the accident by not driving." "Needs to watch out for" is quite different from "is always at fault if it colli…

The impression I get from statement made here it actually seems to be hugely different. Too much of "should watch out", etc. It's more of a "in case cannot be proven, car is in the wrong". In practice, good luck proving that the bike was doing something weird. As result, they watch out.

I don't understand your comment of "strict liability" btw. It's not black/white situation. However, in general they rule against the car. As result, people on bicycles abuse this (especially in Amsterdam). But there's the benefit of a super huge bicycle usage, so although it's not perfect, it seems worth it.

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