My biggest issue with scooters is that the sidewalks on most streets in North America are way too narrow to safely use them while others are walking, and we’re seriously lacking in dedicated bike lanes. Both of which are issues with the prioritization of car infrastructure over all else as opposed to problems with scooters themselves. Since scooters cannot safely run on the road but is still too fast for exclusively pedestrian paths. Where there are dedicated bike lanes in my city, scooters share them with bikes perfectly fine.
Yeah, unfortunately speed limits don’t mean anything and studies show that drivers pretty much always drive as fast as they think they can regardless. The issue is that North America has stroads which are highly conducive to driving fast, damn near highway speeds. If we had the narrow, potentially tile or even cobblestone local streets that European and Asian cities have it would be less of a problem because those conditions directly promote lower speeds and more attentive driving.
It’s also not unheard of either. IIRC Japan had speed governors on their cars for a time, which limited them to their national highway speed of 100 km/h (which is still very fast to be fair).
Yeah, I get it. Private vehicles everywhere on the side of the street are an eyesore and take a ton of valuable public space. If at least e-scooters were as small as a car it wouldn’t be such a big deal to see them parked everywhere.
This fact is why, as much as random scooters being everywhere may annoy me, I see the value in having them around.
My biggest issue with scooters is that the sidewalks on most streets in North America are way too narrow to safely use them while others are walking, and we’re seriously lacking in dedicated bike lanes. Both of which are issues with the prioritization of car infrastructure over all else as opposed to problems with scooters themselves. Since scooters cannot safely run on the road but is still too fast for exclusively pedestrian paths. Where there are dedicated bike lanes in my city, scooters share them with bikes perfectly fine.
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Yeah, unfortunately speed limits don’t mean anything and studies show that drivers pretty much always drive as fast as they think they can regardless. The issue is that North America has stroads which are highly conducive to driving fast, damn near highway speeds. If we had the narrow, potentially tile or even cobblestone local streets that European and Asian cities have it would be less of a problem because those conditions directly promote lower speeds and more attentive driving.
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CityNerd also has a video on speed governors! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBSkLrYbLk0
It’s also not unheard of either. IIRC Japan had speed governors on their cars for a time, which limited them to their national highway speed of 100 km/h (which is still very fast to be fair).
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Or just build roads and bike spaces with safe separation.
If you tighten roads people natively drive slower
the dockless rent-a-scooters need to go. privately owned escooters? great. dock based systems? also great. escooters littered all over the street? nah
I don’t like them either but when Atlanta banned them pollution and traffic became significantly worse. They serve a purpose.
Yeah, I get it. Private vehicles everywhere on the side of the street are an eyesore and take a ton of valuable public space. If at least e-scooters were as small as a car it wouldn’t be such a big deal to see them parked everywhere.
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