I don't really see the racism slant the article is trying to paint all over this stupidity.
Because there isn't a systemic problem with people who look like you getting shot for no reason when they talk to the police.
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Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
81–90 of 97 posts
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine if a company like uber bought thousands of smart cars. Parked them on all the streets. And said there ya go, now you can rent me! Meanwhile people who normally parked on the streets couldn't because these short lease cars were there. I would say that's littering.
Have you ever visited a city with car2go or DriveNow?
I understand that those exist, and fill the same role. My point was with these scooters, and rent a bikes, they get dumped on a city seemingly over night and the volume is vastly different than car2go.
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#83Where's the outcry over cars littering the city?
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it isn't. We give free space to cars, trucks and bicycles. Why not scooters? Is it because they are owned by a corporation? If so should rental cars and car shares be banned?
Typically individual people are limited to ~1 free car and bike space, and many cities treat commercial vehicles differently from privately owned ones. If you park your ten cars on the street, or if you park your ten cars on the street and start a car rental company, or if you park your commercial-plates delivery truck on the street overnight, you will quickly run into conflict with your city government. Rental cars…
Amortized over the full usership, each scooter-user is using far less than one-scooters-worth-of-sidewalk.
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#85Scooters are litter? Are parked cars litter? What about when a restaurants put a chair or table outside on the sidewalk? Maybe a closer analogy is the other kind of electric scooter (as in the mopeds like Scoot). Never heard them called litter. So is being on the sidewalk vs the street what determines if it's litter?
> Are parked cars litter? If you leave them outside of a designated parking spot, sure. > What about when a restaurants put a chair or table outside on the sidewalk? That probably depends on who owns the sidewalk.
> If you leave them outside of a designated parking spot, sure.
What if designate about a third of the city's public space as scooter parking spots? Would that be ok?
To me all the cars that fill my city, standing around being useless 90% of the time, are nothing but litter.
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If someone was stealing your stuff, who would you call, then? Homeowners/renters insurance?
You'd first call insurance the moment you caught someone in the act? So, let's get this straight: it would be an improvement for the scooters to blast: "Don't steal me, or else I will call the insurance company to be replaced".
Possibly!
First, in this particular case, I'd doubt my ability to determine if I'm actually seeing a theft in progress. I've used Starbucks mobile ordering and always feel like someone's gonna think I'm stealing stuff - it's a weird experience.
Second, calling the cops for a property crime like theft/vandalism is something I'm not 100% comfortable with. I've got insurance on my stuff, I think our prison system sucks and is frequently counter-productive, and I don't like the idea that calling the police can cause people to die for non-capital crimes (or complete innocence, like the swatting case a while back).
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#87Scooters are litter? Are parked cars litter? What about when a restaurants put a chair or table outside on the sidewalk? Maybe a closer analogy is the other kind of electric scooter (as in the mopeds like Scoot). Never heard them called litter. So is being on the sidewalk vs the street what determines if it's litter?
> Are parked cars litter?
As in: are they in the way? Yes.
As in: are they useless from pedestrians' point of view? Yes.
As in: would the person who put the car there mind if it was towed and tossed away? Likely yes.
Where I live, I can't see incoming traffic from all the cars that are parked on the sides of streets are blocking the street view and constricting capacity. I would be happy if every single one of them would be treated as trash.
Disclosure: we have a private driveway. I walk and cycle, I don't drive.
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the law is not so clear on that as you seem to think. How long can the scooter sit there? Eventually it could be considered abandoned if they are not coming to pick it up ever.
If it was truly abandoned, maybe. However if the scooter is alerting that its being stolen its probably not abandoned... We're not talking about sitting somewhere for a week, more like a couple hours, I doubt you'll find anyone who reasonably thinks thats abandoned.
I don't think you understand the scale at which these scooters are left.
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Typically individual people are limited to ~1 free car and bike space, and many cities treat commercial vehicles differently from privately owned ones. If you park your ten cars on the street, or if you park your ten cars on the street and start a car rental company, or if you park your commercial-plates delivery truck on the street overnight, you will quickly run into conflict with your city government. Rental cars…
Amortized over the full usership, each scooter-user is using far less than one-scooters-worth-of-sidewalk.
You want to treat any space hogging the same way you treat tail latency. Not as p50, but as p999.
So the question is not "how many people are inconvenienced on average?" but "how many people are inconvenienced during peak times?" If the second figure is non-insignificant, you have a problem.
Gamers and UX designers understand this. ANY latency peaks or waiting time hikes are detrimental.
Re: Scooters littering US city streets alarm: 'Unlock me or I'll call the police'
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I view the police as dangerous but recognize their danger as a necessary cost for effectiveness. I'm afraid of the police, but I'm more afraid of no police.
There are stories every month of police going out of their way to shoot people or with trigger-fingers turning a normal situation into a police homocide - mostly impacting people of color.
Race does seem to have some information value to explaining police shootings, but it's not as information efficient as class.
I defend the right of officers to employ force, but I don't defend every instance of it.