Operating the pedals without shoes on is like steering without wearing oven mittens.
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You kid but in hotter climates I hear that is necessary to be able to touch the wheel.
… would now be a bad time to mention that my mother has a pair of cat-shaped/print oven mitts in her car? 
(I found them while I was giving the poor thing a much-needed bath after sitting idle for a while)
as previously noted, unless the gas metal is exposed metal (most US cars have a rubber cover over the pedal itself), it’ll be mearly uncomfortable instead of searing hot.
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I generally don’t drive barefoot, just because I’m rarely wandering around with some sort of footwear. Also I’m recently sure it’s a ticketable offense here, although the odds of actually being ticketed are probably pretty low.
But I HAVE driven barefoot and didn’t have any problems. I’m curious why you think it would be so difficult?
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Yo, we heard you liked picking up scooters, so we made a scooter…
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I think my weirdness over it is the uncomfortableness of a foot on a peddle coupled with that weirdness equating to a potential loss of control that makes me question it. There was never a question of temperature involved. Say you have to slam on your breaks. Wouldn’t that cause pain/discomfort to do so more than if you had a shoe on? Is that not a risk increase?
I’ve been told every time this comes up by most every person i’ve talked too that this is illegal, but in the USA it isn’t, most people just think it is. it does feel really weird though, only tried it once. even most house slippers don’t feel right to me.
their are some laws against wearing inappropriate footwear, such as that which can come lose and become entangled, flipflops have been ruled both ways. barefoot is fine though. so weird.
i’ll keep wearing shoes myself.
the way i see it, the problem isn’t scooters. people who own their own scooters do just fine with them. the problem is that the scooter rental businesses are operating their business completely out of public space without consideration or recompense.
if they had spaces that the customers are required to rent from and return to, it would be much better. only certain types of things make sense to rent, in this case the customers are likely inexperienced riders on this type and have no safety gear, so maybe those things need to be addressed or they need rent several different types of scooters you can get rated to operate? not sure…
i hate seeing cities crack down on the type of scooter without consideration for private scooter owners though…that really sucks.
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For just a moment I honestly wondered why you were sharing the story about bathing your mother!
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I guess I am kind of glad after all that they haven’t come to Munich yet. We just managed to drive off oBike with their crappy bikes that were basically just left as garbage for everyone to abuse, and instead we love the MVG Rad, the bike system set up by our public transportation company. With dedicated parking stands that recharge the pedelec batteries, and a good collection/repair workshop team.
There’s a couple other bike rentals here in the city as well, and a couple of scooter rentals, so I guess this Bird company will find Munich and other European cities to be an already saturated market.
The only car I ever owned (1980 BMW 323i, acquired for only $800 in the 1990’s due to cosmetic hail damage) required you to drive barefoot.
The return spring on the clutch pedal was a little dodgy, so you had to grip it with your toes to make the pedal come all the way back up.
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Thankfully, no. While she’s getting up in years, she’s still independent enough to not need that sort of help. (and she’s looking into assisted living when that day does arrive.) No, the car needed a bath after sitting idle for the better part of six months.
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