281–290 of 488 posts
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I liked it so much, I bought my own for my commute. It kept me from buying a second car, and ultimately saving 25 miles of driving each day.
Holy crap. You ride on one of those standing electric scooters for at least 37 minutes each way?! (20 mph) That's a long time... I could understanding biking but not stand up scootering.
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Because, by law, you need to wear a helmet when riding a scooter.
Not in California, at least
[1] https://la.curbed.com/2018/9/21/17884220/bird-lime-scooters-...
I live in Baltimore and these things have been awesome. Over the summer and early fall, I used them a lot for trips that were between 3-15 blocks. They were usually less than half the price of a Lyft, were fun to drive, don't directly use fossil fuels and were usually available (in one app or the other) within a block or two of my house. I used them to meet friends for brunch, to pick up my car from getting worked on…
I must be in a bit of a minority but my main objection to these would be the installation of an app to use them - I am perhaps too privacy-conscious and admit I haven't attempted the signup process but even with a throwaway email address, I'm not comfortable installing it on a device I take with me when I leave the house; I even Uber via the web interface and would probably stop using the service if they hamstrung th…
Will convenience ever win out for you?
This is a serious question.
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Vehicles that move faster than pedestrians should go on the road, like bicycles do. As a bike rider, its a vastly superior option that going on the sidewalk.
In more developed areas, there are three options. Fast (main road for cars), medium (bike lane) and slow (sidewalks). I'd imagine birds would ride in the medium and slow lanes. They go up to 15 MPH, which is the run-speed of a human. Should runners be on the bike lane? I don't think so.
Also 15 mph is a sub 4:20 mile, and for most people will be pretty close to a flat out sprint. Not super adviseable on sidewalks either. Most joggers will be going half that speed.
walking, 3mph
running at an 9 min mile 6.5mph
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Curious thought: Disincentivize bad behavior. Scooter companies know who the last user was, so they could develop techniques to apply "parking violations." Whether that means GPS-enabled (sufficient resolution?) or crowdsourced (next rider taking picture) doesn't really matter. But this is like the automobile equivalent of a parking ticket.
What incentive would Lime and Bird have to do this? I think that'd have to come about through policy being passed in enough cities.
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No? If you tried to park a car on the sidewalk you will get towed. I mean, in Santa Monica if you are 1 minute late past the time on the sign you will get towed. The cars are parked in designated spots on the road, with all sorts of rules about how long and how much you have to pay for the spot. In Santa Monica, pretty much every available parking spot has a meter that means you have to pay to park there, and are lim…
If the argument for parking is that it's democratically decided, then being able to leave scooters around wherever is also democratically decided. Santa Monica could pass a scooter law whenever it wants to. They don't have a policy on nose-picking or walking without looking where you're going either. The actual basis of your complaint is that you like parking, but you don't like scooters being put wherever.
I think it is a bit unfair to say we have democratically decided to let scooters park everywhere simply by the fact that we haven't yet passed any laws about where they can park; the law is slow to move, and the scooter parking issue is pretty new. Before Bird and Lime, there were not enough scooters around to be a big enough problem where we needed a law. Now we do, but the law is slow to change.
In the mean time, it is pretty annoying.
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Personally, I love the scooters and bikes these companies provide and I think you make a really good point about them being a positive disruption. It's pretty clear that there is a growing demand for ways to get around other than driving yourself. Lyft and Uber are great for covering distances, but have their issues. In busy metro areas it can often be quicker to walk than it is to drive if you're only going a mile a…
I imagine if more people in the US were willing to reevaluate "too long to walk" these types of scooters would be next-to-useless. Walking a mile or two is easy, healthy and does not take very long.
I live in Baltimore and these things have been awesome. Over the summer and early fall, I used them a lot for trips that were between 3-15 blocks. They were usually less than half the price of a Lyft, were fun to drive, don't directly use fossil fuels and were usually available (in one app or the other) within a block or two of my house. I used them to meet friends for brunch, to pick up my car from getting worked on…
I must be in a bit of a minority but my main objection to these would be the installation of an app to use them - I am perhaps too privacy-conscious and admit I haven't attempted the signup process but even with a throwaway email address, I'm not comfortable installing it on a device I take with me when I leave the house; I even Uber via the web interface and would probably stop using the service if they hamstrung th…
So all info you withhold from them is the few meters walk from where you ordered to where you got picked up.
I live in Baltimore and these things have been awesome. Over the summer and early fall, I used them a lot for trips that were between 3-15 blocks. They were usually less than half the price of a Lyft, were fun to drive, don't directly use fossil fuels and were usually available (in one app or the other) within a block or two of my house. I used them to meet friends for brunch, to pick up my car from getting worked on…
> don't directly use fossil fuels I feel like this is a bit of misleading marketing since a ton of fossil fuel is used to round them up and distribute them around town every day.