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Scooter Madness

nytimes.com

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Re: Scooter Madness

#21

Post by gamblor956 »

btbuildem wrote: post #14
tomhschmidt wrote: post #3

> Last month, the inevitable happened: Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed, and we are calling on Mayor David Briley and the Metro Council to ban them from the streets immediately,” the petition reads, arguing that Mr. Gaulke shoul…

And it wasn't the car, either. IT WAS THE DRIVER CONTROLLING THE CAR. We've been brainwashed so hard, people can't even use language to describe what actually happened, lest responsibility fall on the individual.

It wasn't the driver of the car, either.

It was the guy on the scooter that made an illegal turn in front of the SUV, disregarding traffic laws put into place precisely to prevent the type of accident that occurred.

Re: Scooter Madness

#22

Post by cjf4 »

Having just gotten back from Nashville, their implementation is not really working. The sidewalks are now stressful to walk on as scooters fly above 20 MPH in all directions, with the rider often yelling "Sorry! I don't know how to drive this thing."

Re: Scooter Madness

#23

Post by onemoresoop »

tomhschmidt wrote: post #3

> Last month, the inevitable happened: Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed, and we are calling on Mayor David Briley and the Metro Council to ban them from the streets immediately,” the petition reads, arguing that Mr. Gaulke shoul…

Scooters and cars are not compatible on the same roads. Whoever wants to risk their life could drive these scooters. However, when a company makes scooters widely available and with no barriers (e.g. no scooter licence) the perceived risk lowers as in "everybody does it, must be ok" or "if it's legal it's safe" type of judgement.

Banning scooters is not a smart idea but the entry level should be stepped up a few notches. Maybe operating one should require some safety lessons. Or maybe a licence that can be lost as incentive to not do stupid things.

The alternative is to not do anything and learn from accidents and deaths of others. This is the long and painful road.

Re: Scooter Madness

#24

Post by mistermann »

btbuildem wrote: post #14
tomhschmidt wrote: post #3

> Last month, the inevitable happened: Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed, and we are calling on Mayor David Briley and the Metro Council to ban them from the streets immediately,” the petition reads, arguing that Mr. Gaulke shoul…

And it wasn't the car, either. IT WAS THE DRIVER CONTROLLING THE CAR. We've been brainwashed so hard, people can't even use language to describe what actually happened, lest responsibility fall on the individual.

> people can't even use language to describe what actually happened

This is a good point, although I'm not sure sure I agree with the cause or motive. But if one starts paying very close attention to the general nature and specific wording used in forum conversations, I think it starts to become clear that very often participants believe they are discussing "just the facts", when in reality they are often discussing things in the form of a story, or a particular perspective which usually only takes into consideration a subset of all the relevant facts.

In this case, new technology has been broadly deployed into society without corresponding training, and a young man has ended up dead. It seems unlikely the entirety of the fault rests in one place, but rather could plausibly be attributed to any number of things that had they been done differently, the gut-wrenching emotional pain this family has to live with for the rest of their life could have been avoided.

I believe if each of us made a serious effort to be more mindful of our thoughts and words, we could perhaps move closer to a society where these realities can be discussed in a more objective manner, and we could enjoy both the advancements of technology, while increasing the likelihood that everyone gets home to their loved ones at the end of the day.

Re: Scooter Madness

#25

Post by onemoresoop »

randyrand wrote: post #4

It's an easy fix - just add bike lanes and bike/scooter racks. The benefits of scooters are many: a single lane can accommodate many more scooters than cars. less emissions. faster than public for 1-3 miles. It's worth accommodating scooters.

Do you think it's a good idea to mix bicycles and scooters?

Re: Scooter Madness

#26

Post by darkstar999 »

randyrand wrote: post #4

It's an easy fix - just add bike lanes and bike/scooter racks. The benefits of scooters are many: a single lane can accommodate many more scooters than cars. less emissions. faster than public for 1-3 miles. It's worth accommodating scooters.

> less emissions

Are you sure? Accounting for the fact that drivers pick them up with a car, drive them home, charge them, and then drive them again to a new location? And the fact that they can have as little as a 6 month life because of wear and tear?

Re: Scooter Madness

#27

Post by jseliger »

klodolph wrote: post #2

> Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed [...] I'm just going to take a moment to remark how impressive it is that automakers have achieved this, that the roads are owned by cars and collisions are framed to be the fault of whoever wa…

It's also amazing to read this piece in the same newspaper that has published perhaps thousands of articles about the (very real) threat of climate change.

The solution is to ban 30 pound scooters, which have zero point emissions, in favor of multi-ton cars, which carry around an entire internal-combustion rig, spewing CO2 out the entire way?

Talk about bizarre.

Re: Scooter Madness

#28

Post by wil421 »

tomhschmidt wrote: post #3

> Last month, the inevitable happened: Brady Gaulke, a 26-year-old Nashville man, was killed in a collision with an S.U.V. while riding a scooter. His grieving parents have launched a petition to ban the devices in Nashville. “[E]-scooters are unsafe at any speed, and we are calling on Mayor David Briley and the Metro Council to ban them from the streets immediately,” the petition reads, arguing that Mr. Gaulke shoul…

The scooters are the problems because they do not obey the traffic laws.

Atlanta just created scooter ordinances and the local news is showing announcements from APD with the new regulations. No riding on sidewalks or leaving scooters on sidewalks. You must act like a car and move with the flow of traffic like a car. Fines will be given out.

I used to walk over abandoned scooters on my commute every day when I worked downtown.

Re: Scooter Madness

#29

Post by module0000 »

From TFA:

> Less than 1 percent of the injured riders were wearing helmets.

I'm not sure why this statistic was included. All it could demonstrate is "people more likely to wear helmets are less likely to be injured". IE: cautious people are cautious.

This article reads like FUD. Along with scooters, people are currently free to go bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing, skin diving, and all other manner of activity which carries a higher-than-walking-around-the-block chance of injury. I don't want to live in a nerf-like society, where our available activities are dictated to us by...anyone.

Re: Scooter Madness

#30

Post by sneak »

module0000 wrote: post #29

From TFA: > Less than 1 percent of the injured riders were wearing helmets. I'm not sure why this statistic was included. All it could demonstrate is "people more likely to wear helmets are less likely to be injured". IE: cautious people are cautious. This article reads like FUD. Along with scooters, people are currently free to go bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing, skin diving, and all other manner of activit…

Because all of the scooters, for liability reasons, implore you to wear a helmet. Nobody does. It’s a farce. They are unsafe.
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