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Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

france24.com

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Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#441

Post by ilyt »

rlpb wrote: post #417
elric wrote: post #287

I wonder if there have been any social studies done regarding the apparent sense of entitlement that comes with operating any kind of vehicle. E-scooters are an absolute menace nearly everywhere I've seen them being used, with their operators weaving between pedestrians and cars alike, and littering the kerb when unused. But the same is often true for bicycles, especially the fast electric kind, and it's certainly tr…

> and littering the kerb when unused I think that we have different standards here. Street parking for cars is the norm now, but it isn't altogether different in principle from people leaving e-scooters "in the way" on public roads and pavements either. I accept it's a bit different as others have pointed out, but given that we generally permit street parking for cars (subject to some rules), it seems reasonable that…

Looking at amount of e-scooters kicked over I'd say society decided they do not have a place directly on the pedestrian/cycling path.

Here they eventually forbid it altoghether and now companies have to use dedicated space, not just random patch of ground they find

> Street parking for cars is the norm now, but it isn't altogether different in principle from people leaving e-scooters "in the way" on public roads and pavements either.

The difference is that for the most cars it's someone's personal vehicle parked near where they live, while majority of the scooters are taxi-equivalent, with personal ones just being taken home.

So in first case it's public space serving public, in second it's public space serving company's margins

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#443

Post by 76SlashDolphin »

pasc1878 wrote: post #407
wcoenen wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I visit Paris as a tourist, I have another impression. Each time I stop, as a pedestrian, to wait for a traffic light to turn green, grumbling Parisians walk around me and cross the street with complete disregard for the red light. (I'm not sure I've ever even seen a Parisian pedestrian waiting for a traffic light. They might wait for traffic to clear a bit, but not until there's a green light.) So to me, it…

You are American aren't you. This is how normal people use lights in the rest of the world. If it is green walk. If it is red - look around and if it is reasonably safe walk. Jaywalking is not a rule or anything like it. The UK highway Code has recently been changed so that pedestrians have right od way over cars turning into a side street (although not if controlled by traffic lights)

Not OP but I'm Bulgarian and find it insane how people in France and the UK cross with complete disregard for traffic lights. Afaik it's the same across former socialist countries (at least the ones I've been to). I may cross on a red light sometimes when there are absolutely no vehicles around but red means stop in all situations and when in doubt, for safety, you should assume the person with the heavier vehicle has right of way.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#444

Post by tuetuopay »

eloisant wrote: post #423
Fradow wrote: post #272

Parisian here, for context I've been cycling to work for about 10 years now (before Paris transformed into a cycle-friendly city). There are a lot of speculations and hypothesis from people who don't live in Paris and try to apply their experience in a different city to Paris, so allow me to offer the experience (obviously I'm biased) of someone living there. The first big misconception is that this ban is only due t…

> There are a lot of speculations and hypothesis from people who don't live in Paris and try to apply their experience in a different city to Paris, so allow me to offer the experience (obviously I'm biased) of someone living there. So you're saying, compared to other cities, Paris' problem is parisians? And e-scooter don't work because parisians can't be bothered to be civil?

As we say in France, the problem with Paris are the Parisians.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#445

Post by mnw21cam »

simplotek wrote: post #326
walthamstow wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough we have the exact opposite in the UK. Private scooters banned, rental scooters laying all over the pavement. I lean towards private scooters as more preferable because they don't clutter the public space. However, because they aren't regulated, some people have extremely fast models. Not uncommon to see someone doing 30mph+.

> Funnily enough we have the exact opposite in the UK. Private scooters banned, rental scooters laying all over the pavement. What's the rationale behind this nonsense?

The official reason is insurance, and ensuring a small trial area.

Basically, in UK law, the scooters count as motor vehicles, and therefore must have a licence, which they can't for other reasons. So, they're illegal to ride on the pavement because they're motorised, and they're illegal to ride on the road because they're uninsured and unlicensed. There are a few trial areas where companies are providing insured scooters for hire under a recognised scheme, which is what makes them legal.

This is the same reason why electric bicycles in the UK must only apply power to assist you as you pedal - they must detect when you pedal, and act as power-assisted pedalling. It's illegal to have an electric bike that gives power when you're not pedalling, because that would count as an unlicensed uninsured motor vehicle.

It's a quirk of the way that classes of vehicle are defined in UK law, and I'd rather they just sorted it out.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#446

Post by dijit »

belorn wrote: post #418
dijit wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a problem of shared spaces. Pedestrians and Bikes are a poor mix. Bikes and Cars are a poor mix. but scooters and bikes seem to mix quite well. Malmo, Sweden; where I live, has excellent cycling infrastructure and the scooter "problem" is really miniscule. There are still issues, people parking in stupid ways or taking scooters into pedestrian areas, but overall there are significantly more dangerous driver…

Malmö municipality view the problem of e-scooters that have been dumped in the canal (or in the coast) as a problem that the owner of the e-scooter is responsible for. They do not want to pay for cleanup. The e-scooter companies on the other hand view it as way to expensive if they had to pay for the cleanup, and that they could not operate profitable in malmö if they were forced to pay for it. The end result is that…

Sure, but I think people throwing loose things into the canal is perhaps unrelated to the points raised in TFA, by the parent or even by me.

If you want to talk about this topic in particular: a similar situation happened where people kept throwing outdoor chairs into the canal from Biraria (a restaurant located near the canal in Malmo)[0], the municipality made them pay for it and it sent them out of business (those trawlers are expensive).

Tugg, the place that leases the space now; has insurance for this.

I don't see these cases as dissimilar.

[0]: https://goo.gl/maps/E2XraNA9Yxx9mic7A

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#447

Post by alistairSH »

wink wrote: post #304
elric wrote: post #287

I wonder if there have been any social studies done regarding the apparent sense of entitlement that comes with operating any kind of vehicle. E-scooters are an absolute menace nearly everywhere I've seen them being used, with their operators weaving between pedestrians and cars alike, and littering the kerb when unused. But the same is often true for bicycles, especially the fast electric kind, and it's certainly tr…

I think you're missing the fact that car infrastructure with curbside parking has evolved over decades, and cities have not managed to even provide ample parking space for standard bikes, as they have been in use for decades as well. Now these scooters just came into existence and over the course of 5-8 years have managed to clutter everything. They're not individuals' property (who would pick them up later) but they…

Pretty simple solution to the parking problem… repurpose one street parking space per block from a car to several bikes/scooters.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#448

Post by rlpb »

ilyt wrote: post #441
rlpb wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and littering the kerb when unused I think that we have different standards here. Street parking for cars is the norm now, but it isn't altogether different in principle from people leaving e-scooters "in the way" on public roads and pavements either. I accept it's a bit different as others have pointed out, but given that we generally permit street parking for cars (subject to some rules), it seems reasonable that…

Looking at amount of e-scooters kicked over I'd say society decided they do not have a place directly on the pedestrian/cycling path. Here they eventually forbid it altoghether and now companies have to use dedicated space, not just random patch of ground they find > Street parking for cars is the norm now, but it isn't altogether different in principle from people leaving e-scooters "in the way" on public roads and…

> The difference is that for the most cars it's someone's personal vehicle parked near where they live, while majority of the scooters are taxi-equivalent...

I don't see why this distinction matters. In both cases, it's for the direct benefit of some individual, at a direct cost to others - especially those who do not benefit from and have no interest in subsidizing that particular mode of transport. In both cases, some companies profit from that (whether it's car sales and leases or e-scooter hire fees).

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#449

Post by tuetuopay »

franky47 wrote: post #185

One major annoyance with these e-scooters is their "take it from anywhere, leave it anywhere" rental model. Sure, it's practical for the user, but it litters the pavement for everyone else with scooters badly parked, sometimes even lying on their side on the floor, requiring teams of maintenance people to patrol the streets (with petrol trucks) and set them back up in an orderly fashion and grouped at strategic locat…

You cannot park the scooter anywhere outside of the dedicated scooter parking lots, and it is enforced by your phone's GPS. Lime (at least) is pretty strict about it. I once had to make a trip around the block to get my location "unstuck" because it located me 5m off the parking. And they even check the parkings are not overcrowded: if there are too many scooters in one, they'll prevent you from stopping the rental and tell to go find some other parking spot.

Really, it's been at least a year, maybe two, I haven't seen a lime or something else parked willy-nilly on the sidewalk or the pavement.

So yeah, in Paris, the end result is not much different from vélib, except you don't have the problem of "the thee stations around are empty and the fourth has only broken bikes".

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#450

Post by thetoon »

elric wrote: post #287

I wonder if there have been any social studies done regarding the apparent sense of entitlement that comes with operating any kind of vehicle. E-scooters are an absolute menace nearly everywhere I've seen them being used, with their operators weaving between pedestrians and cars alike, and littering the kerb when unused. But the same is often true for bicycles, especially the fast electric kind, and it's certainly tr…

> I'm happy to accept the scooter menace if it means fewer cars on the road.

At least here in Paris, it doesn't feel like scooters replace cars : the latter being mostly used to reach suburbs (and most of them actually originating from another suburb), while the former replaces long walks - at least journeys which would have been done by foot twenty years ago - or métro.

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