"Nick Has an Exocet" (nickallain)
12/03/2018 at 10:47 • Filed to: None
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"Nick Has an Exocet" (nickallain)
12/03/2018 at 10:47 • Filed to: None | 0
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I may be late to this party. On one hand, these are a great way to get around a congested area. On the other, people give 0 shits about where they leave them and their conduct while driving them. That’s bad. Folks, use the bike rules: walk them if you’re on a sidewalk and park courteously.
This week I’ve developed extensor tendonitis in my left foot for the 3rd time in 6 months. I’m going to need to get that looked at. So walking great distances has been out. As luck has it, I’m also in Paris - one of the most walkable cities in the world. Damn.
A lot of the things I wanted to see are a 30-40 minute walk from each other so I decided to give these guys a try. They’re pretty great for getting around here. They’re relatively quick, are stable enough (though FWD braking gets dicey in the wet), and strangely enough - traffic here seems to make MORE sense when on one.
Let me explain that last bit...The shear fuckery of Paris traffic is hilarious. The lights are non-sense, the drivers turn on reds, there are bikes, mopeds, motorcycles, cars, trucks, taxis, police, ambulances, and pedestrians all simultaneously engaged in a chaotic dance. From a typical driver’s perspective, it’s insanity. Yet from my perspective, everyone treats their car as if it were a big Vespa.
Suddenly, I get it.
Enough room for two lanes but only one lane of markings? Then make two.
No one coming? Go straight on red - you’re just a pedestrian with 2 or 4
wheels anyways.
However, this brings me to the one
point about these scooters that’s going to do them in: they are
hilariously dangerous. With 0 skills, no verification of helmet, and no
sense for local traffic - you can grab one and start mixing it up with
traffic. That’s insane. I’m a rational and level headed person (within
reason, I am building an Exocet) but these things are basically the same speed as a car/motorycle in traffic
.
For now, I’m going to enjoy it when traveling. These are probably getting banned, haha.
ttyymmnn
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 11:13 |
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There are couple thousand of these littered all over Austin. They suck. For all the reasons you listed. And now they are allowed on the trails in certain parks. Seriously, fuck these things.
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Nick Has an Exocet
> ttyymmnn
12/03/2018 at 11:14 |
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Yeah, it’s weird. I really do hate them. Yet riding one when you’re broken is the next best thing to a motorcycle. Better maybe since it’s easier to park.
Textured Soy Protein
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 11:19 |
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Random anecdote: there’s a sorta-mall building in DC that has several big box retailers like Target, Best Buy etc all together. It has a big parking garage underneath. I frequent a store around the corner from this place. The side street it’s on does have street parking but if I can’t find a spot I say screw it, park in the Target garage, and walk back out to the street thru the lobby of this place.
One time I was coming out of the elevator from the parking, and some kid on one of these scooters comes flying in the front door held open by his friend and zips right past a bunch of people including me.
I saw him coming, and if I were so inclined, I had a good angle on him to make a perfect tackle. But no good would come of that, so I just stepped to my left and watched as a security guard started chasing him.
DURN KIDS AND THE DURN SCOOTERS SCOOTIN AROUND WHERE THEY SHOULDN’T! GET OFF MY LAWN!
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ttyymmnn
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 11:20 |
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People around here don't park them. They abandon them.
Ash78, voting early and often
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 11:21 |
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I’m even later than you to this party but:
PEOPLE USE THE SE IN THE ROADWAYS?!
All these articles I’ve seen, I just figured they were used on sidewalks. All of our urban electric bike rentals are sidewalk tools. I can’t even imagine inexperienced people using them amid the cars. That takes some expert skill, even in a much smaller (and more logical) city than Paris.
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Nick Has an Exocet
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/03/2018 at 11:46 |
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Hahaha. Yeah. In most places bikes are supposed to be on the road . Most of the Bay Area treats bikes as cars unless they have a dedicated lane . Same in Paris.
T hese are technically road tools. There is 0 instruction. There is 0 preparation from the app to inform you about local road rules. It’s hilarious. They do 25 kph - which means they keep up with traffic pretty well in congestion.
ZHP Sparky, the 5th
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 11:55 |
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Yup these are meant to be used on roads, as any other vehicle following those same rules and with helmets. I haven’t seen a single person wearing one – because who walks around with a helmet handy for when they need to rent a scooter??? And they zig zag on and off roads/sidewalks, choose when traffic rules work/don’t work for them in deciding whether to follow them or not – it’s a disaster.
Recently I saw a guy riding one…with his toddler son standing on the same scooter in front of him. On the sidewalk in a busy city, neither of them had helmets or any kind of protective gear. That’s just a horrible stupid accident waiting to happen, on top of being dangerous and annoying for everyone else around them .
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Ash78, voting early and often
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 12:16 |
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Bikes I can see
...I was just shocked that these scooters (basically electri
fied Razors with almost no gyroscopic stability like a bike) were actually pitched as roadgoing vehicles to casual renters.
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Nick Has an Exocet
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/03/2018 at 12:31 |
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Yeah, they are stable enough in good conditions. That said, I took them out in the wet over cobblestone. There were a couple of streets that were like driving on ice.
Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz)
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 12:35 |
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I don’t necessarily support any
of what is shown here, but it’s all fairly entertaining:
https://www.instagram.com/birdgraveyard/?hl=en
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Nick Has an Exocet
12/03/2018 at 13:28 |
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So dangerous! We just got them here in the last month, and it’s crazy how fast people go flying around on them (with no helmet, of course). I fully expect there to be a new insurance question about scooter use right next to “are you smoker” soon.
bhtooefr
> Ash78, voting early and often
12/03/2018 at 19:55 |
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There’s plenty of areas where it’s illegal to use them anywhere but roadways (sidewalks off-limits, and no bike lanes, so you ride in the road just like a bicycle, they’re the same speed). And really, they suck on sidewalks anyway because you feel the transition between every slab.
In my area, sidewalks aren’t really... used... all that much, so I’ll ride slowly on one if the alternative is dealing with fast car traffic (but walk it across crosswalks). (Amusingly, the manual for mine actually says not to ride it on roads.)
Also, as far as carving between cars... honestly, the higher center of gravity, shorter wheelbase, and ease of stepping off if control is lost actually makes it easier to control in tight situations to me.