Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters • Hacker News Board

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#481

Post by alistairSH » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #134

HWR_14 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is contending that using scooters is bad for the user. They are saying a bunch of drunk users are using them recklessly for non-users and are getting in people's way by parking them all over the sidewalks and streets. An aggressive ticketing campaign isn't very helpful in a city with a lot of tourists, because they'll just go home without having paid the ticket. Is Interpol going to seek out 30 euros?

> An aggressive ticketing campaign isn't very helpful in a city with a lot of tourists, because they'll just go home without having paid the ticket. Is Interpol going to seek out 30 euros? I have proposed this before in my city, ticket the e-scoter company for improper parking not the users. Most of these business have gps trackers on them they will quickly find a way to enforce proper parking onto users. We need to…

Heck, you could probably create parking zones (with signs/paint/etc) and most people would use them. Part of the problem now is users don't know where to put the scooters.

You'd think common sense would dictate not across sidewalks, but humans prove time and again that common sense isn't very common.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#482

Post by Xerox9213 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

I remember the first time I visited LA, seeing them piled up on sidewalks and blocking foot traffic was so bizarre. Not to mention people whizzing past me on sidewalks. It was very detrimental to the walking experience.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#483

Post by bluescrn » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

thefz wrote: post #470

bluescrn wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'E-scooters have safety risks, let's encourage people back into 2-ton fossil-fuel-burning cars instead!' If we want a future of EVs, we need to figure out how to include personal light EVs, not just very expensive full-size-car replacements for the wealthy.

"e-scooters" produce an ungodly amount of battery waste.

Nothing compared to what a world of full-size EVs will produce when they start piling up on scrapheaps in more significant numbers. (Ideally we need recycling solutions for both)

But moving people around on 20kg electric scooters has got to be a lot more efficient than doing it in 2000kg electric cars.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#484

Post by wcoenen » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

seszett wrote: post #464

wcoenen wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pedestrians can basically cross wherever and whenever they want The "code the la route" article R413-38 says otherwise: Lorsque la traversée d'une chaussée est réglée par ces feux, les piétons ne doivent s'engager qu'au feu vert. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...

The rest of the sentence was "it's a bit more complicated than that, but not by much". The law also says that pedestrians can be fined all of 4 euros for crossing at red and they have no responsibility in the case of an accident, which means in practice there are no consequences for crossing at red. As long as you check that you aren't going to be run over by a car, which people do. They cross at red if there are no…

We seem to be in violent agreement that Parisians don't care about the traffic rules.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#485

Post by belorn » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #446

belorn wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Insurance would work if the e-scooter companies paid for it. You can't however use a trawler as that would be counter-productive if the concern is ecological damage, so it would need to be commercial divers which is quite expensive when dealing with low visibility canals. The insurance premium would likely be quite high. The companies can naturally try go after the criminals in order to recover the costs.

The two issues are however related. Commercial operations need to pay external costs imposed on the city from commercial activity, be that parking issues or water pollution. If companies refuse to do so it will be up to the citizen to decide if they want those costs be paid through taxes, or issue regulations that may force those companies to go out of business. Either way someone will have to pay for cleanup. Right now no one is doing that in Malmö and other Swedish cities, which is not sustainable.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#486

Post by ta988 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:35 PM UTC

It is a good thing I was in Paris recently and those things are littering sidewalks (sometimes by piles of dozens all mangled), and people are driving them recklessly. Really a big annoyance.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#487

Post by foobarian » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:38 PM UTC

Are these things not valuable? I was wondering how they don't get grabbed up by the dozen and scrapped for parts.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#488

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

pharmakom wrote: post #460

dolmen wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The religious indoctrination is that people (including bus drivers or ferry operators) should have a rest day with their family (everybody has the same rest day). Whether it is really religious or just good sense is left to your appreciation.

Usually companies establish a rotation where some work Saturday and some work Sunday but nobody works both.

[deleted]

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#489

Post by VBprogrammer » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

I think electric personal mobility vehicles are such a missed opportunity in terms of climate / traffic reduction. Certainly in the UK the fact that they started by being basically illegal for years and means they are, for the most part, ridden by people who don't give a shit or people who's parents don't give a shit.

Re: Paris votes to ban rental e-scooters

#490

Post by 0xAFFFF » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 2:40 PM UTC

Note that this only applies to e-scooters operators: their licence won't be renewed. Privately owned e-scooters are still legal and allowed.

The irony is there has been a lot of efforts from the mayor and operators to regulate the e-scooters: licensing to a limited group of operators (3 afaik, instead of virtually every operator under the sun deploying scooters), designated parking spots, better communication of rules to the users, automatic speed limits in walking areas.

As a parisian that mostly walks and uses public transportation, most of my gripes with those services have been addressed by the aforementioned measures, but I guess that the early deployment chaos pissed off enough people to have them voted out.