*looks at graze on elbow *
There’s been at least one this fortnight, so 26 per year at minimum.
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True as this may all be, it would take a massive upheaval of the social contract (to the extent that it would never happen) to hold carmakers to task appropriately. Such social contracts aren’t present to interfere with legal pursuit of scooters.
Once again, I’m not arguing that it’s correct that cars get away with it, but within the framework of the question “should scooter companies be held accountable,” bringing up the situation with cars amounts to a tu quoque.
There are a lot of subtleties at play here. My initial assertion was around how a consistent legal environment that resulted in censure of scooter companies (and I mean damages awarded, or criminal charges, not just the banning of scooters on the basis of some cost/benefit basis) “should” (logically, and/or morally) make life similarly difficult for any business supplying evidentially dangerous products without adequate safeguards. The evidence that cars are dangerous is so overwhelming, it seems logical to me that carmakers would be targets.
I’m not really arguing for or against scooters. And I’d agree with you that it’s not going to happen that car companies are ever held accountable. Massive social upheaval would indeed be the outcome. VW actually broke the social contract, acted immorally and illegally, and killed tens of thousands with dieselgate. They’re still in the game.
Here in NZ we don’t have personal injury law suits, instead there is a govt owned insurance company that get’s money from things like vehicle registrations, employers (depending on how dangerous a job is), the general tax fund etc etc
At the moment we’re seeing a whole bunch of Lime related injuries (and one local death) - but Lime is not paying into the insurance fund, they’re freeloading off of the rest of us. It’s likely time govt took the initiative and started taxing Lime rentals to cover these externalised costs (something we can do but the US likely can’t).
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Nice 
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No…Actually, they’d be correct. If you’re scared, just walk.
Well, no. Although I do enjoy it, walking doesn’t work for much of the travel that I do. Cycling fills a big gap, as does public transit, but I still drive a little. In any case, choosing alternate forms of transport doesn’t insulate me from the danger caused by cars at all. Many of the fatalities and injuries are borne by those who aren’t driving, particularly pedestrians and cyclists. Add in the deaths due to the pollution and that’s what makes the societal acceptance of the toll caused by cars so egregious. If it was only drivers being affected, I’d perhaps be all “Yes, drive all you want. Because freedom!”
There is a massive toll on society caused by fucking cars. It simply doesn’t have to be this way. That this is simply accepted and no-one at all is held to account is one of the great tragedies of our time. We ALL know people and families affected by road violence. It makes me angry.
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Very well thought out reply…”walk” was rude of me, and I apologize.
However, I still believe it shouldn’t fall within the car manufacturers remit to make cars slower, or made of armor with balloons inside and out…or whatever other impractical ideas would be proposed once such a responsibility
was assigned to them.
That ship (the opportunity to regulate mandatory governors on private cars) has sailed. Driving fast is fun, exhilarating, and is a huge part of many millions of otherwise publicly buttoned-down lives and will never stop. Banning
private vehicles completely is always possible, but not likely…”Red Barchetta” by the band Rush describes the probable result of any law of this nature.
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I agree that the controls required to manage this hazard, whilst technically feasible are politically unpalatable, and are likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. That’s the outrageous thing. We as a society place our rights to use the roads as we wish, with little regard for the law (even as it is written) and as entertainment areas and as de-facto racetracks, way above the tragedy it causes. We’re a weird bunch. The battle to improve the safety of road users will always be a hard-fought one. That this is true is completely our choice and that is absolutely disgraceful.
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I watched one young woman’s scooter freeze up in the middle of an intersection in Tacoma, WA, when her time ran out. She almost went over forward off the scooter and had to drag / carry it out of the street while cars were waiting. Looked like an accident in the making.
I didn’t think that’s how they worked. Once they have your credit card, they just keep billing more time. Not to say the scooter didn’t fail for some other reason. They’re built to a price, but I understand that the engineering may be improving out of recognition that reliability/durability is both safe and more profitable.
And walking!
Do you reckon that Lime would pay the ACC levy or shut up shop? It could be quite a large levy.
Very much this. That number in isolation isn’t especially useful. Percentage of injuries of scooterfolk vs bikefolk, pedestrianfolk, or motorcyclefolk would be a good first metric IMHO, and I bet will show that as previously discussed, helmets are probably a good idea.
I think they’d simply add it to the rental price - remember in the US they likely have a large pool of cash set aside somewhere to cover lawsuits in the US, in NZ they are either pocketing that money or charging less, so it shouldn’t affect their bottom line.
I hope that Lime-style rental scooters (and bikes) flourish, they just have to be good citizens and work within society coexisting with current footpath users (and that includes not parking them where they block wheelchairs and mobility scooters)
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You have to take severity of the accidents into account. A hundred scratched elbows is much better than a single death.
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