[HN Gopher] Madrid bans hired e-scooters over safety concerns
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Madrid bans hired e-scooters over safety concerns
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 22 points
Date : 2024-09-05 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lemonde.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lemonde.fr)
| dublinben wrote:
| >ban all rental e-scooters from October because of the risk they
| pose to pedestrians
|
| >injury-inducing street litter
|
| Do cars next, I dare you.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| > injury-inducing street litter
|
| If you abandon a car in the middle of the road across two
| lanes, you'll fairly likely see relatively hefty fines,
| possibly lose your car. This hurts you, the abandoning party
| directly.
|
| If you abandon a rental e-scooter in the same way, you'll most
| likely have no repercussions, and at worst the cheap e-scooter
| is forfeit which doesn't impact you, the abandoning party at
| all, and not really the e-scooter company either since they're
| most likely on a VC funded mission to try to flood the market
| with cheap e-scooter rentals until the competition drowns.
|
| There's some seriously skewed incentives at the root of the
| rental e-scooter plague.
| huuhee3 wrote:
| This. It's a wild west with these e-scoots, and unlike cars
| they're everywhere. My city has only 100k people and even
| here they're a huge nuisance.
| itishappy wrote:
| This seems trivial to address. If you misuse HN, you get your
| account banned and can no longer post on HN. If you mistreat
| an Uber driver, you get your account banned and can no longer
| hail a ride. What stops this system from working with
| e-scooters?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Suppose you rent a scooter, park it "properly enough", I
| come by and move it a few feet into an improper parking
| place. Do you want your account banned for that?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Cars don't drive randomly around pedestrians on a sidewalk.
| Thanks for the concern though, I got knocked out by one of
| these things and it wasn't pleasant.
|
| Plus, these things usually stand right on a sidewalk, right in
| the way of pedestrians.
|
| Good riddance. Hopefully more cities follow.
| quest88 wrote:
| Why ban them instead of incentivize better behavior?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| How. You can't fix stupid.
|
| Edit: I can think of a way. These things move in a regular
| traffic. To drive a car, I had to do a driving license. 40
| hours with an instructor, a theory test, and a practical
| exam. How come any clueless chimp can get one of these and
| ride in traffic? They are dangerous to themselves and
| others. It's a celebration when they wear a crash helmet.
|
| So here are my ideas:
|
| 1. Require a license for these things.
|
| 2. Collect and remove illegally parked scooters. Rental
| companies know who rode one, they can claim the cost of a
| scooter removal fee from the rider who parked it illegally.
| If they are concerned about people randomly moving scooters
| into illegal parking positions... well, come up with
| dedicated parking areas where the rider has to bring them
| back and lock them.
|
| Until then: ban them.
| cinntaile wrote:
| A license for an electrical scooter... It's like getting
| a (hypothetical) license for a bicycle. Completely
| unnecessary. No special skills are needed to ride one of
| these, it's super simple. You should try it sometime. A
| license won't fix stupid anyway, you just said so
| yourself.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| I don't tell people what they should be doing. Everyone
| so entitled to tell others how they should go about their
| lives. But there you go: you should try to understand my
| argument about these things moving in between the
| traffic.
|
| But it's interesting you mention a bicycle license. In
| the 1990s I did one in Poland as a young teenager. It was
| called "karta rowerowa". Not exactly a license but it
| taught me about traffic rules and probably saved me from
| trouble. It was worth it. Some cyclists in Aachen could
| make use of something similar, maybe they'll know that
| cycling 5kph in the presence of the StVO VZ 277.1 just
| aggravates everybody.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Unfortunately, 2 cannot make the difference between a
| renter who parked illegally and a renter who parked well
| but a random person kicked the e-scooter on the ground. I
| see this a lot with e-bikes in my neighborhood.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| People lose the ability to read to the end:
|
| > well, come up with dedicated parking areas where the
| rider has to bring them back and lock them
| denizener wrote:
| Not having a license is crazy.
|
| I walk daily for exercise and have almost been hit
| several times by some kid doing crazy things on them.
|
| I would say it is at least once a week I see someone do
| something stupid on one.
|
| Without needing a license there is nothing to lose for
| driving stupid.
|
| Comparing these to a bike is obvious bullshit.
| undersuit wrote:
| The simplest solution is to let scooters have priority in the
| streets. Aggressively police the aggressive vehicle drivers
| that are pushing scooters onto walkways. Especially as the car
| drivers already have a license system.
| 10-22-38Astoria wrote:
| Just gonna put this here...
|
| "BiciMAD is a bicycle sharing system in Madrid, Spain. It is
| currently provided by the Empresa Municipal de Transportes de
| Madrid, a public company owned by the City Council of Madrid."
| [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BiciMAD
| mmustapic wrote:
| If you are implying that the city banned e scooter rental
| because it competes with the bike sharing company you are
| probably wrong. I live in Gent, Belgium, and there is no e
| scooter sharing, while we have several bike sharing companies.
| stare_spb wrote:
| A short-sighted solution to the problem. You have a fleet of
| remotely controlled vehicles, information of driver profiles.
| Limit the speed for beginners to 12 km/h, based on telematics
| data for careful drivers, outside of busy areas - to 15-20 km /
| h. Develop bike lines infrastructure.
|
| A complete ban will lead to more people buying their own
| scooters, which are not limited in speed, as a long-term result -
| more serious incidents.
| m463 wrote:
| The article said this:
|
| > because of the risk they pose to pedestrians
|
| I took it to mean cluttering the sidewalks, not crashes.
|
| Is it about crashes?
| octacat wrote:
| City could allocate dedicated areas for parking scooters with
| white line around it on the floor. Usually you can park 30
| scooters in the area, used by a single car. Basically, Krakow
| implemented this. Parking areas are enforced in the
| Application (fine would be collected for parking in a random
| place though the app). You still can park your own scooter in
| the regular bike parking areas though (I think?). Scooter
| parkings are pretty much near each bus stop in the city
| center.
|
| So, basically, no need for a ban.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| The simple solution is that e-scooters and other powered vehicles
| need to face the same enforcement as cars.
|
| If not for tickets, plenty of drivers (including me) would take
| more liberties on the roads.
|
| Licence plate, fine if you don't have one, fine if you're
| naughty. If only everything were as easy to solve.
| vizzier wrote:
| Ordinary things did a good (slightly comedic) brief history of
| the scooters a couple of years back.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9aeMccUPY0
| ionwake wrote:
| From what I've read Spain has been renaming streets to erase
| history and over extended on the financial payouts required from
| divorces. Banning e-scooters sounds like a likely continuation on
| poorly thought out yet surprisingly strong handed rules.
|
| I have no qualm either way let me know if I'm wrong. I'm
| constantly surprised by things all over the world I'm not picking
| on Spain - lovely place.
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