At least off the sidewalk.
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Ugh, these damn things again.
Maybe they’d be okay if their speed were severely limited, like, to that of an average pedestrian?
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But the right to bear e-scooters shall not be infringed!
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Look - before we can discuss scooter control - you have to properly define what you mean by a scooter. Is it motorized? How many watts? How many times can it be recharged? Can you have battery packs that store multiple batteries? Does it have four wheels or just one big one?
The Flounders /s were very clear about freedom of travel, association and the quartering of horses during war time. I’m sorry- but I just don’t see what can possibly be done here.
We tried.
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How about we ban just assault scooters?
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There has been a lot of discussion, now that they are finally allowed in Germany. What got them allowed on the streets were the following limits:
- they can only use bike lanes, or those paths where bikes are allowed.
- they have to be governed to a limit of 20 km/h
- they need to be insured like scooters and Segways (proof of insurance is a sticker or tiny license number on the back)
- getting insurance means the manufacturer has to get his model registered as street legal
I have tried one here in Munich, and the use case for these things is actually pretty limited. It’s good for cutting down walking times from subway stop to doorstop, but otherwise no real win over the e-bikes that the MVG already offers.
One possibility that I haven’t seen mentioned is pairing scooters with parking garages: park your car at Joe’s, and get usage of one of Joe’s scooters while you’re in Gotham. If parking is otherwise expensive in Gotham, then it could be seen as a reasonable alternative to cut down on the stinkers circling around, looking for a free spot. Just go to the big garage, and take a scooter to your final destination.
It would be interesting if a city would make the leap of banning all combustion engines from the downtown area, with garages at the city limits making it easier to leave your car out on the edge, and use a scooter for the last km. But that would require courage to pull off against the pushback from residents who want to keep their cars, and from the car lobby.
EDIT
What I really think is that e-scooters are best when they work together with public transportation, and when public transportation is better thought out. I am thinking of the scooters are the capillaries to the arteries and veins that the bus/tram/subway network is. Not as a replacement for anything, other than for trying to drive from door to door.
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The only time a Vespa could be called a crotch rocket
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I was talking to my transport planner friend about this topic at the weekend, and there are a couple of European towns which have done this (alas, I didn’t remember the names). In his estimation it worked rather well.
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