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The arguments that justify fines for blocking sidewalks are all too happy to ignore the sidewalks being blocked by trash and tents, it’s internally inconsistent.
Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
31–40 of 83 posts
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#32>> another innovative company, this one focused on the crucial task of getting people out of their cars and onto other modes of transportation as climate changes worsens and our streets feel like one huge traffic jam.
Oh please; scooters don't get people out of their cars and they're essentially treated like short-life disposable goods. They're a convenient alternative for short-distance trips, like zipping through a busy downtown core, probably on a sidewalk, through pedestrians at too high a speed and with no signaling or safetly equipment. I don't like much about SF, but would love to import whatever brought about forcing out Bird to my city.
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
God no, invest in building out the trains and public transit. Scooters are just toys. Get a public transit like the NYC subways and it will change the city forever.
Last mile problem exists even in NYC. Also, the geography and weather of SF isn't the same as NYC so you can't just cut-and-paste a solution from one to the other like a block of code from StackOverflow.
Last mile problem? There's a subway station almost every 3-4 blocks in the entire city.
Nowhere did I say it's a cut and paste solution. I said invest in the trains they have already instead of dumping money on scooter startups.
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#34[flagged]
I hate SF for mostly the same reasons as you, but they’re right about scooters.
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#35There’s no way to profitably run a company like Bird without foisting the externalities on someone else. Their model is literally to dump a bunch of electric scooters on the side of the road with QR codes on them and just hope for the best. Of course they’re going to get fined when their property is left blocking driveways, of course they’re going to be expected to clean up the piles of scooters that get thrown in th…
Not to mention the extra costs to the healthcare system. These things are not safe!
In SF, _what_ healthcare system? Wouldn't surprise me if some HMO is bankrolling Bird and waiting for those sweet, profitable trauma cases.
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#36Once said that the "too high fines" sounds like an excuse, I am not sure to understand the logic of the fines (i.e. the attributing them at least partially to the company). When you rent a car, the driver/renter pays all fines during the rent period, except maybe those related to the car itself not being fit for street use. Why is this different for these scooters?
Are they referring to the fines from littering their scooters all over town?
I could understand somehow those (though there must be anyway some method to make the user "responsible" of the bad parking).
No idea how it would be achievable it is entirely possible that the user parked the thing correctly but a kid passing by moved it later.
Many years ago in Paris (France) there were normal (actually terribly heavy) bikes for rent that had dedicated stands, you unlocked them with a card or similar, and you had to return them and lock them to another stand, otherwise you kept paying the rent (it was far from perfect, but at least created not this kind of problem).
But I was talking more about the US$ 500 one for driving on the sidewalk:
>And scooting on a San Francisco sidewalk instead of in a bike lane or road can earn a fine of $500, even if there’s no bike lane available. That fine is split between the scooter company and the scooter rider.
That one should be all on the rider, shouldn't it?
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#37I am 100% in favor of more regulation when it comes to transportation in cities. Solutions like Uber, scooters etc strike me as great ideas; but also somewhat inevitable, and would have benefitted from a growth process other than "all the Silicon Valley VC money fueling everything."
(I still maintain that a movement to enshrine the idea that these scooters left around where someone lives fall under the legal category of "mislaid property" and anyone finding one as such gets to keep it and modify as they wish.)
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#38It seems in the US regulations seem to be spun as something negative by all major news outlets. For me this reads like sensible government policy at work. If the fines of cleanup eat into profits and are not just a minuscule cost of doing business, they set it just right instead of plain forbid it outright.
Yep, weird, especially when these same companies require more sensible behaviour from users in other jurisdiction in response to laws.
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#39Bird is a plague on cities. Good riddance.
I consult for a company that is based in a city with scooters. My view is that they are essentially industrial garbage. People leave them on the sidewalk blocking pedestrians at best. At worst they end up in the canal or in the middle of the road. When they do get used it is often on the sidewalk. If the owners and users respected these things it would be a different story but at the rush for market dominance noone c…
There’s a guy on Reddit who does magnet fishing in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Seems like he finds mostly guns and electric scooters: https://old.reddit.com/user/TopS3cr3t/submitted/
Re: Bird leaves S.F., blaming ‘the most onerous regulations’ in the world
#40It seems in the US regulations seem to be spun as something negative by all major news outlets. For me this reads like sensible government policy at work. If the fines of cleanup eat into profits and are not just a minuscule cost of doing business, they set it just right instead of plain forbid it outright.
Sensible policy that driving a scooter on the sidewalk gets you 5x the fine that driving a car on the sidewalk would? Holding the companies responsible for users of rental scooters actions but not users of rental cars is sensible policy?
That kind of whataboutism just convinces me that the fines for driving cars on the sidewalk should be higher, yes.