In Portugal, e-scooters had to be severely regulated as many gruesome and bloody accidents happened because their users entered high speed ways, heavily modified the scooters to achieve over 80km/h speeds, were left abandoned by users of rental services everywhere, invaded sidewalks and endangered pedestrians or public transports lanes.
The ever growing size of cars is a worthy cause of worry: I drive a Ford Ranger for professional reasons and the vehicle is ridiculously cumbersome, wide and clumsy for the roads I have to use. Lawmakers need to cull the auto makers arms race on bulky vehicles.
But lets not overlook that e-scooters are a very big source of traffic accidents by themselves and let this micromobility solution run amok.
Are escooters a “very big source of traffic accidents”? I’m sure there have been crashes and there should be regulations, but are these crashes just much more publicised than car crashes and that’s why you think there’s been a lot?
I have a national entity that collects and processes such data and elaborates the statistics.
Just out of sheer number, car accidents have to be more numerous: more cars, more accidents.
But car related accidents do not have to be fatal by default, or bring severe bodily damage to passengers and bystanders.
escooters have no protection neither for the user nor bystanders, with the added risk factor that a gross number of the users of these scooters invade, willingly, walkways and other reserved lanes, with often serious consequences.
escooters brought an entire new pletora of problems
No, I would argue that e-scooters simply exposed the existing problems in our infrastructure today. As I said in another comment I prefer ebikes to e-scooters by A LOT but people should not be forced to ride 80 fucking km/h SCOOTERS just to get where they are going. It doesn’t happen when there is accessible and affordable transit.
And in cities, pedestrians and bikes (sure scooters too) need to be separated as well. Cities have haphazardly thrown e scooter rentals out there, not thinking about the fact that there is absolutely no infrastructure to support it, and so people are claiming it’s the scooters fault for the city failing to build anything that actually supports these services, and more broadly, failing to build anything that supports alternative modes of transport.
These are considered for all purposes motor vehicles and can use as such any road, except for highways. These even have an incentive for adoption, being exempt of some taxes.
Riding these in a city and getting into an accident follows the same rules; a car hitting one is pretty much screwed, as these vehicles do not have the same defensive capabilities as a car. The average car drivers respects and gives room to these vehicles.
The only blatant flaw for better acommodating these vehicles is the lack of reserved parking spaces, which forces many drivers to occupy sidewalks just like what happens with conventional scooters, and most people understands and tolerates.
By comparison, these have quickly become the bane of safe travelling for allbecause whoever uses these tends to think is better or smarter than anyone else.
These were originally considered equivalent to a bicycle and as such could use those lanes as well as common roads, observing the same traffic regulations (keep to the right, no more than two bicycles side by side, wear helmet, etc). And bycicle accidents are not rampant.
Unlike those contraptions that are constantly seen invading sidewalks and other pedestrian reserved areas and endangering people and animals. There have been several sightings of these machines doing 110km/h in highways; those people are reckless and stupid. Rentals are often abandoned anywhere and everywhere. Users of these often swerve in front or between traffic, invade BUS lanes and endanger themselves and others.
Accomodate these any more? How about some basic civility?
If you’re sitting its a motorbike. If you’re pedaling and it’s under a certain wattage it’s an ebikes. If you’re standing and throttling it’s an e-scooter. I’m not talking about electric mopeds/moyorcycles. E scooters are only acceptable when they’re limited to ~25km/h IMO, but ebikes are still preferable. I’m not saying people should be going 100km/h on a scooter, you’re misconstruing it. I’m arguing that the fact that those people are resorting to using 100km/h death machines signals a problem in infrastructure and alternate modes of transport.
These machines being tinkered with and heavily modified happens almost exclusevely in urban areas where good public transportation already exists.
Every article I’ve read usually boils down to thrills, a hollow sense of being against the system or just disrespect for the place because tourist.
Even giving all the wiggle room for bad reporting, it feels something is very wrong with this particular mode of transportation, in that setting.
I live in a rural area, with essentially no public transportation, and these alternatives have been growing in popularity with no issues. Even the older folks get intrigued and often strike up conversations with the people using it.
Sometimes, Even when drivers leave the road, scooters/bikers/pedestrians somehow get blamed for being too close to a road. It just comes down to what it’s always come down to:
Buy a fucking car or get blamed for everything cause you didn’t buy a car.
It’s the first time I drive one. In my private life I drive either hatchbacks or station wagons (because dogs) which handle and are built very differently.
All in all, car bloat has increased vehicle prices while making autos more destructive to human life, natural ecosystems, and pavement alike. Because the full societal costs of crashes, pollution, and road repairs are not borne by owners of SUVs and trucks, every American is effectively subsidizing car bloat. Even if they drive a sedan. Even if they don’t own a car at all.
Yup. as a huge truck driver and also as a bicyclist, I’m always very aware of bike lanes, especially these mergey-switchy areas. I have been the bicyclist in this situation before and I have been hit by a car in even less-dangerous traffic patterns before. I’m very conscientious about bicyclists when I’m driving.
It resembles Steven’s Creek by I-480(?), lemme try to enhance that sign
Edit: oh man this image is compressed all to hell. There’s a very similar death trap at Steven’s Creek Blvd. and I-280 in Cupertino, but this ain’t it.
I’m like 95% sure I’ve seen that somewhere around Orlando, and the sign looks like a Turnpike sign, but the turnpike doesn’t go to Tampa unless you go turnpike to I-4…
EDIT: there’s a less crunchy image on Reddit, apparently FDOT posted it to Twitter. That is definitely a Florida Turnpike sign (sorry for linking to Reddit)
EDIT 2: Found the original tweet via wayback machine, which was deleted by FDOT (gee, I wonder why?) and it’s somewhere in Palm Beach County (Lyons Road to the Turnpike), not Orlando.
“The helmet held off the drunk redneck in the luxury truck just long enough for us to acquire a tissue sample from which the DNA was sequenced. We were able to positively identify the remains of your child. I’m sorry.”
SUVs and trucks are UNIMAGINABLY worse. I’m not a fan of e-scooters, they need a little bit of training to use safely and are still dangerous compared to an ebike. I would rather have ebikes replacing e-scooters everywhere they are now.
However, they are comparatively a nuisance compared to the menace of SUVs and light trucks killing pedestrians every single day.
I just cycle in the middle of the lane in UK. No one seems to mind but the odd (rare) driver but they still overtake on the incoming lane with no issues.
Who really cares if your drive is slowed down 30-90 seconds by waiting for a cyclist. Driving has a strange competitive mindset about making your journey in an “expected time”. I’ve never understood that
There’s this weird perception issue that I’ve noticed while driving. A car is able to cover so much distance so quickly that even small delays in time can equal a huge loss in distance.
Not that it really matters though because having to wait 30 seconds for a bicycle just means that you’ve lost 30 seconds. The amount of distance you have to make up is irrelevant, you’re still only 30 seconds behind where you would have been.
And in any case, those same people will get to the parking lot and will circle around for minutes looking for the perfect spot closest to the front doors so they don’t need to waste time walking.
My wife was a “Bikeability” (UK) teacher and this is how they teach people to cycle. Unfortunately there are too many entitled arseholes that can’t bear to not be doing the speed limit 100% of the time. And I say this as a car driver.
The bike lanes suck though. They are next to the street, instead of behind the parking and next to the sidewalk. As a result, on the main street in Hoboken (Washington street), there are always cars double parked in the bike lane during the day or drinking hours of the night, because parking in that city is horrendous. It’s common to see an entire block or two full of cars double parked in the bike lane, making it unusable. Also, they redid the bike lane with textured hexagonal bullshit so using any wheels smaller than e-scooter wheels (skateboard, roller skate) is just a super rough ride.
Great that he stopped pedestrian casualties, but he severely harmed personal non-car transit.
There’s no such thing as horrendous parking. There is only too many people showing up by car when they ought to be walking/biking/riding transit instead.
He still added bike lanes that weren’t there before no? How is that harming personal non-car transit? Maybe go to city council meetings and ask that double parking in bike lanes be enforced. I would certainly think the city wants to make money from fines.
Also how many people are riding around on rollerblades? The “hexagonal bullshit” makes the bike lanes distinct and noticeable increasing awareness and also gives tactile feedback if a driver starts driving on the bike lane. Yeah it sucks for skateboarders but the tradeoffs are worth it, especially because again, how many skateboarders are there really? Some municipalities don’t even allow skateboards in bike lanes because the drastic speed difference between them and bikes tends to cause issues.
Could the bike lanes be better? Absolutely, they could be actually protected bike lanes like you pointed out but don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, they don’t “suck”. And 0 pedestrian deaths over the span of a few years is very very good.
Doesn’t look too bad in this light, it’s the even daylight where the idea of it doesn’t show. I think it’s ugly but can look cool in certain light like this, the top section bright and the lower shadowed. Should have been a concept car cause of obvious reasons producing it at scale.
Part of me respects a design that can be so provocative. It shows how people care about design, and reminds me how boring and “nothing” a lot of the objects we interact with on a daily basis are.
I’m all for it. I’d like them to lead by example. If this was actually enforced I bet my bottom dollar that public transport/mirco-mobility issues would be completely solved in 15 years max.
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