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The Rise of the Electric Scooter

blog.codinghorror.com

51–60 of 339 posts

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#51

I recently bought a Boosted rev and have been using it for my 1.8 miles commute. I strongly disagree with the author's 15mph limit. I think 25 mph is a more reasonable limit, otherwise you have cars aggressively trying to pass you on roads. At 24 mph (my scooters max speed), the cars on my commute (25mph speed limit), still try to pass me sometimes but it's a lot safer.

I can’t imagine doing 25mph on such small wheels, one small pothole and you will be off.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#52

I recently bought a Boosted rev and have been using it for my 1.8 miles commute. I strongly disagree with the author's 15mph limit. I think 25 mph is a more reasonable limit, otherwise you have cars aggressively trying to pass you on roads. At 24 mph (my scooters max speed), the cars on my commute (25mph speed limit), still try to pass me sometimes but it's a lot safer.

At 25MPH, a tiny crack or lip in the concrete would equal a very expensive faceplant. And it's not really even a matter of skill or reflexes - the tiny wheels of the current electric scooters are just not capable of handling imperfections at speed.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For rentable escooters, the consumer doesn't really have to worry about them being stolen. And they're easier to park than bikes.

By park you actually mean litter everywhere, as there are very few designated parking places, much fewer than for bicycles.

I doubt there were many parking lots when cars were new, too.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#54

I recently bought a Boosted rev and have been using it for my 1.8 miles commute. I strongly disagree with the author's 15mph limit. I think 25 mph is a more reasonable limit, otherwise you have cars aggressively trying to pass you on roads. At 24 mph (my scooters max speed), the cars on my commute (25mph speed limit), still try to pass me sometimes but it's a lot safer.

25 mph makes sense on the road (same with pedal-assist electric bikes), but on sidewalks 15 mph is definitely fast enough given the small wheels and lack of a suspension. even what look like small cracks/potholes can throw you off the scooter if you’re not paying attention.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with disabilities can't use stairs, should we stop building those too? It's okay to support a mode that only most of the population can use. There are still other modes, just like with stairs and elevators/ramps.

That's explicitly not what I meant. I meant that disabled people cannot use either. The scooters solve no problems bicycles already do not, not exactly even portability yet. They create problems of litter on sidewalks, trash generation due to damage (where rental bikes are typically fixable if damaged) and issues of safety as they're much less visible and people tend to not use the bell...

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Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with disabilities can't use stairs, should we stop building those too? It's okay to support a mode that only most of the population can use. There are still other modes, just like with stairs and elevators/ramps.

That's explicitly not what I meant. I meant that disabled people cannot use either. The scooters solve no problems bicycles already do not, not exactly even portability yet. They create problems of litter on sidewalks, trash generation due to damage (where rental bikes are typically fixable if damaged) and issues of safety as they're much less visible and people tend to not use the bell...

A friend of mine is a quadruple amputee, so he'll never drive, and the bus sucks. He gets around as much as possible on his electric wheelchair, which is a micromobility device, and he benefits from micromobility infrastructure that bikes and electric scooters use. I pick him up and we go to the pub together, I'm on my skateboard.

It's funny, Handicap parking spots are sacred. What kind of a deplorable, revolting human being would ever park in a handicap spot if they weren't handicapped? Pictures and videos of horrible, wretched human beings parked in handicapped spots are posted online so they can be called out and shamed.

Yet there are so many disabled people who cannot work a regular job and/or cannot qualify for a licence. Everything about cars makes their lives more difficult. Often they just stay at home, because getting anywhere is such a costly and/or harrowing chore. Handicap spots are just more parking lot they have to cross to get where they're trying to go.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably the best solution for you. Please let other people decide what's best for them.

It's not just about choice, it's a safety issue. https://www.consumerreports.org/product-safety/deaths-tied-t... > Earlier this year, a CR investigation—which tabulated injuries from 110 hospitals in 47 U.S. cities—found that at least 1,500 riders had been injured since e-scooters were introduced in late 2017, and there were four fatalities. Since then, CR has identified an additional four deaths.

No, the safety issue is cars. Take away cars and you take away 99.9% of transportation's ~40,0000 annual fatalities.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#58
Back in ca 2001-2005 I used to work my summer nights for a tiny electric scooter rental place that had about 10-20 working scooters at a given time, renting them out to tourists at a lake, and they were fun, especially after learning how to tune the controller for a nice speed boost (for staff use only, of course). There were no serious accidents in all the time I worked there, even though the main customers were flip-flop wearing tourists and kids, driving these for the first time in crowded pedestrian areas.

For all intents and purposes, they worked and felt like the modern scooters, except that they had quick swap, fast charge AGM batteries. If we wanted to run an errand the next town over that would exceed a 30-40min ride (30min was a typical rental period), we'd just pack some extra batteries!

Those scooters were custom inventions, but larger scale commercialization never got anywhere and the business eventually died because of the battery tech being too cumbersome for consumer use, and the same legal questions that still plague us today, though it seems like electric bike usage the past 15 years has allowed at least some legislatures to give alternative powered transport a chance. As they should, as replacing large lumps of metal moving through our cities at unsafe speeds with much smaller lumps of metal moving a lot slower can only be a good thing for residents, pedestrians, and the environment.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#59
post #41

I rode a non-electric kick scooter (Xootr) for three years working in downtown SF. It is by far the best form of transitional transport there is and superior to bikes for 99% of actual real world travel. It was easily 4-5 times faster than walking and more importantly suddenly made the entire city open due to how insanely efficient it was for "glueing" together various forms of public transport. I could hop from tran…

I've been biking for 2 years in SF and disagree that it's impractical for short trips. Why do you think that?

You have the deal with the bike afterwords. Go for brunch in the mission and your friends are going back to the outer sunset with a scooter just fold it up and put it in the car with a bike either hope it's there when you get back, bike all the way, or go home then head over alone.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#60

As a suburban dweller who doesn't go into the city much, it's still surreal to hear so many stories about the electric scooter craze, to know its happening thirty or forty miles away... And I've literally never seen it. I do feel its a good companion to public transit in theory, though it still lacks everything I want from you know, just having a car: Somewhere to put stuff. I never commute light enough to live off a…

This is a great point. I see people bringing up lots of questions and concerns about these devices, but it's missing a critical point: these were designed with specific use cases in mind. They are only useful for people in cities to go short distances. And within that scope, they are an excellent addition to other transportation options.

What you mention is actually what I want to build next: micro-mobility for larger errands. If I buy a trunk load of groceries from the Wal-Mart 6 miles from me, I want to be able to bring it home. I'm hoping to start designing devices that fit this use case. Once they exist, they'll provide tons of benefits: more affordable than a car, the ability to perform trips faster than with public transit, and more compact "traffic" on roads compared to cars (to say nothing of emissions).

Another use of these devices is actually changing people's life decisions. I moved to my current address because it's very close to a subway and trolley line. But now that I use an electric scooter to get to work, I could move anywhere that's the same distance. I think there'll be tons of these little wins found as the devices expand more. (I should note, my city does not have any rental scooters, but I see people riding their own all over the place)

As batteries get better, I think we're going to start seeing more variety of devices tailored for more use cases. The scooter will own the short trip into work, whereas larger devices will be used for cruising off-road, even hauling a sheet of plywood from Home Depot.

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