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.

    • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      14·
      22 hours ago

      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.

      • Inui [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        21 hours ago

        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.

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      7·
      21 hours ago

      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.