Honestly, seeing them zipping around everywhere they look pretty good on the face of it. The advantages seem obvious:
- Save time versus walking
- Quiet
- No effect on local air quality
The main issue is them colliding with pedestrians, but (similar to bike lanes) that’s a thing town planners should deal with by creating the right environment.
I’m willing to change my view if people tell me good reasons they are bad.
Yes, there is more environmental impact than a bicycle, but not than an e-bike, and they seem to be good for people reluctant to cycle.
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As a strict walker and train rider it has the same problem as any individual human operated vehicle where they all seem to want to kill me for daring to walk. I’ve seen people go on them very quickly on pavements without slowing down for pedestrians at all. In an ideal world they’d be great but honestly i think personal transport and people don’t go so well together. More buses, trams and trains pls or at least less cars so electric bikes and scooters can go on the road instead
I am in Beijing. They are everywhere. Totally silent which means I have almost been Tboned a few times crossing the road but I’m 100% behind them
Owning one: incredible. Love it. I commute a short distance to work and take it inside even when I go shopping.
Rental ones: trash. Worse carbon emissions than an entire EV car. Docking bikes are much better.
They’re dangerous as fuck. Tiny wheels and very minimal or no suspension means that any bump or small stone in the road is going to send you flying at 25-45 kph.
Electric bicycles are all the conveniences of an e scooter in a much more solid and stable frame, except portability.
Electric unicycles have the wheel size and suspension of an ebike but with better portability than an escooter, the only real downside is the steep learning curve.
What happens if you hit a bump or stone though? Seems like it would be even more dangerous?
In the abstract, fine. The e-scooter startups are annoying AF.
I do not love the dockless rental e-scooters. The incentives of the business model are all wrong: because they’re paid by time, people tend to ride as fast as possible to save money, and even double up on one scooter. Because helmets aren’t provided or required, nobody uses them, and because of the dockless structure people frequently leave them blocking all or part of the path and the companies all use underpaid gig workers to collect them overnight for charging.
It’s a symptom of the capitalist desire to solve transportation problems with absolutely no infrastructure investment.
However, none of these problems are actually problems with electric scooters as such, they’re problems with a specific business model which happens to primarily use electric scooters but which also sometimes uses electric or even accoustic bicycles with all the same attendant problems.
Peep what happened in Portland, OR when the scooters got out of control and people showed they couldn’t be responsible with them. People started throwing them off of bridges into the river, or on top of inaccessible business roofs.
Other people collected them and turned them back in hoping for reward money, even using grappling hooks and other goofy things to pull them off the roofs they weren’t allowed on.
They’re a menace for pedestrians, especially if you live anywhere near a college campus.
Yes, like I said, these are all problems with the dockless rental model, not with escooters
This video on the economics of them is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91Oyd7zK1bk
A bazinga byproduct of the 0% interest rate era with little actual profit potential. In that video the narrator says an average rental scooter gets like 15 minutes of usage per day, which here would amount to like $3 in revenue while a gig worker has to drive around all day retrieving the ones people trash. I hate that we have that model instead of the city owning bikes or subsidising the cost of one for consumers.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I have one and I absolutely love it, but, I also understand why some people don’t. Many people who use them (especially rental ones) don’t wear a helmet and some will go up on sidewalks at full speed. You gotta be careful with them especially when you’re first getting used to them, I had a couple falls starting out (I’m klutzy). Gloves and kneepads aren’t a bad idea (in addition to a helmet, obviously), and always be careful around corners and doors and watch for potholes, especially on your first time taking a route. If you’re careful and responsible, they can be great. Very portable, affordable, and fun and easy to ride. If the streets are bad, you can get on the sidewalk, if the sidewalk’s bad you can get on the street, and if things are hazardous, you can go slow and just step off if you need to. Only bad thing is if they run out of battery, you’re kinda stuck, as opposed to an ebike where you could ride it manually.
I can’t stand them, mainly because there are always people flying around in them and weaving through pedestrian (and car traffic for that matter) and almost colliding into everyone in sight. And there are so many people that don’t even have driver’s licenses that are flying around in those things.
I am in favor of all forms of electric micromobility: e-bikes, e-scooters, e-unicycles, etc. My main form of transportation is my electric unicycle, it’s great.
I use them. A lot cheaper than a car and preferable in my flat rural town
i think they’re a great idea and they’re pretty fun to ride, but i really don’t enjoy how fast people go with them on busy sidewalks with lots of pedestrians and how they’re just left to clutter up sidewalks when people throw them to the ground after use. they’re not much else than an annoyance on tighter sidewalks to me, but i’m sure to people who require mobility aids they can make life really difficult.
They’re good for places that aren’t bike friendly. Honestly anything outdoory getting popular is a win in my book.
I want more pedestrian paths and fewer cars. While I don’t like that the rentable ebikes/escooters don’t come with helmets and people leave them everywhere, they’re riding on the biking path I need instead of driving and both of those things benefit me.
That being said I’d much rather areas take Colorado’s approach of subsidising ebike purchases. They’re so practical and can replace almost all local driving with 50kg+ of cargo capacity. I want people to have a free option that best meets their transport needs while building up the biking industry.
The dental field loves them…
