Scourge?

"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura) 01/02/2019 at 11:15 • Filed to: None

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There are many who think so. I am inclined to feel the same.

facw > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 11:25

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I think like bike shares, there’s some merit, but like dockless bike shares, I think the strewn everywhere approach is not something that should be tolerated. If these are littering an area where they are not allowed, they should be impounded, just like a bike that was chained up illegally, or simply treated as litter . Cities should look to create more valid parking for bikes/scooters though.

KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 11:25

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They’re getting strewn around like trash in most cities now, actually scratch that. People are more careful with trash than these things.

nerd_racing > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 11:26

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I rode some of these around Indianapolis when I was there for PRI. It was pretty neat and very affordable. I’d welcome them in the summer months for semi urban areas.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > facw 01/02/2019 at 11:28

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I agree. Litter. And dangerous because foolish people.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > KingT- 60% of the time, it works every time 01/02/2019 at 11:28

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That's my impression.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > nerd_racing 01/02/2019 at 11:29

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Yes, but littering the streets...

Future Heap Owner > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 11:34

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Dangerous how?

fintail > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 11:40

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We don’t have these in suburban Seattle yet, but the randomly abandoned Limebikes still amuse me.

Tekamul > Future Heap Owner 01/02/2019 at 11:42

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Discarded wherever, making access for some difficult.

Ridden illegally, in multiple ways. They dumped them in the capital her e in VT, where they were being ridden on the sidewalks (illegal) by minors (illegal) without helmets (illegal). Also, they stopped working when it got cold in November. They’re gone already.  

jimz > Future Heap Owner 01/02/2019 at 11:42

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- idiots riding them carelessly and running into pedestrians

- 17-18 year old turds riding their bikes too fast down the sidewalk and using these things lying around as jump obstacles (I witnessed this, along with several near-misses with pedestrians)

It’s basically promoting a “careless slob” culture. 

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > fintail 01/02/2019 at 11:59

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Here in Pacific Beach right now these scooters are EVERYWHERE

Future Heap Owner > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 12:05

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I’m for these. They’re a cheap & effective form of urban transportation that puts more things on the road that aren’t cars (making me as a bicyclist safer) and replace some amount of short car trips with a smaller consumption of electrical energy from the grid. Their nuisance and safety issues  pale in comparison to those of cars, so you’re gonna have a hard time convincing me we should get rid of these but continue to cater to cars with our urban planning and infrastructure.

I do think the companies should be required to coordinate with cities to some extent on deployment, and should be required to build some amount of docks and incentivize their charger people to return them to the docks.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 12:08

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I just visited Nashville and it’s ridiculous the place people leave these after they are done with them. It was not uncommon for them to be parked or ( thrown down/tipped over ) in the middle of busy sidewalks.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > facw 01/02/2019 at 12:11

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Dockless could still work as long as there’s a fee if you don’t properly park it. I suppose it’d be hard to enforce though.

But... If the fee were to be $10, they could offer people $5 bounties for pictures of scooters that were parked with total disregard.

Sovande > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 12:17

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I’m not sure what people have against these? The kids in my neighborhood love riding them in the streets and then abandoning them, broken, on the sidewalks.

On the real side, if people had respect and dignity these would be a pretty cool solution the last mile commute woes in my city.  

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Sovande 01/02/2019 at 12:43

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The issue of people not storing them properly is a major one. But on top of that folks also use them in extremely dangerous and illegal ways. My favorite example was watching a man probably in his late 30s, respectable looking fellow riding one with his toddler son in tow (illegal), on the sidewalk at speed (illegal), with neither of them wearing helmets (also illegal). If you can’t get a middle aged father with a child to use these things responsibly, all hope is lost with the rest of the urban drunkards who love these things.

That latter point about helmets brings up another issue – even the companies claim you need to wear helmets when using these, but they don’t come with one. So their business model expects people to wander around with a helmet all day long in case a person needs to use a scooter? Of course not, like most recent “tech” “startups” it’s all a nod and a wink to profiting off activity that they very well know is illegal, dangerous, or at the very least, immoral.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 12:53

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I despise these things. The City of Austin has approved up to 9,000 of them. Nine. Thousand. They are an eyesore, they block doors and sidewalks. People don’t look where they are going. I hate them. 

Decay buys too many beaters > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 13:18

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I wish this website still was active

http://scootersintheriverpdx.com/

Scourge. They need to have docks and be integrated into the city plan. This dockless crap needs to stop.   

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 13:59

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Just saw a guy at lunch getting on one with his 4 or 5 year old daughter. Should be a crime. 

shop-teacher > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 14:29

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I have yet to experience these, but I've yet to hear anything good about having them around.

Sovande > ZHP Sparky, the 5th 01/02/2019 at 15:05

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Yeah, it’s a shitshow.  The 3 kids I had to wait behind on the road yesterday (as they zigged and zagged in and out of the bike lane) made me nervous.  I would guess they were all about 12-13 years old and to be fair, they looked like they were having a blast.  I think it’s a bit of a shame how the scooters were introduced - no warning, no infrastructure, no rules - just dropped off one Tuesday with the expectation that people would simply get used to them.  I genuinely like the idea since I live about a mile and a half from a metro stop and one of these would almost make commuting via mass transit viable for me.  As it stands now, the Metro would cost me $5 dollars less a day and take roughly 4 times as long with about an hour of that time spent walking.  I could ride my bike to the station, but there is no guarantee it would be there when I returned in the evening.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Future Heap Owner 01/02/2019 at 15:23

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For the record, I never said ban them, just maybe collect them all up and take them to the landfill.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 01/02/2019 at 15:26

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Precisely.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Sovande 01/02/2019 at 15:28

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#peopleareidiots

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 01/02/2019 at 15:28

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But what's the down side?

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Sovande 01/02/2019 at 15:30

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As with many of these programs there is merit to it - but the companies are more focused on gaining market share and making money, over actually solving a legitimate problem . Creating infrastructure , working with regulators, setting rules, etc. goes against all that. They’d rather just get it out there and get people hooked to it as quickly as possible, and hope that regulators don’t catch up before it’s too late.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Decay buys too many beaters 01/02/2019 at 15:30

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I’d rent a pickup from uhaul, mask the tags, then go around and collect them by the dozens and abandon them somewhere out in the desert, having first made sure that they could not phone home

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 01/02/2019 at 15:31

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Yes, but then you'd have tried to legislate common sense.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > shop-teacher 01/02/2019 at 15:31

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I see little of an upside because people are idiots.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 15:42

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I’m guessing a cop could get them on child endangerment. 

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 15:51

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I hat e these things. I would pick them up and put them in a dumpster.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 16:00

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They have a lot of upsides, when the rules are followed. But tons of people are abusing that. I’ve used them and like them. They’re great for short trips in dense urban areas. But I only use bike lanes and park them where they won’t be in pedestrians’ ways.

I think riding reckless or drunk, people should be ticketed similar to if they were driving (not nearly as severe since it’s not nearly as likely to kill someone).

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 01/02/2019 at 16:02

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People would abuse the bounty though. Just pick up every scooter you see and park it stupidly. Then snap bounty pic. Easy money.

user314 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/02/2019 at 16:19

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None of those in the Burgh that I’m aware of, though they’d most likely just fall into a pothole and get lost in China.

Instead we have these:

There are docks (when people deign to use them), but so far they’ve mostly been used to ride from the higher points of PGH to the lower points, requiring them to be trucked back every so often. Seems like that defeats the purpose...

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > AMGtech - now with more recalls! 01/02/2019 at 16:35

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Possibly, unless the scooter has proper sensors to know if it has been moved after it was first parked.

I won’t deny my idea might be flawed, but it’s an idea none-the-less.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 01/02/2019 at 20:18

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Not a fan myself...

facw > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/11/2019 at 22:52

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Thought you might like this:

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/08/flipping-a-bird.html