Electric Scooters in Your Area

[Jules]

Are electric scooters popular in your locale? This whole area is tourist driven so now that it’s spring, they’re everywhere again until there’s snow. Locals use them too. They’re a speedy method of transportation.

Editing; e-scooters, not those scooters for handicapped people. See the pictures @hollydolly posted.

They were mentioned in an @Jean-Paul thread but it had already gone off topic once so thought I’d start a new topic.

Rebonjour chère Madame Lilac!
>>>I am curious about the electric scooter rental.

The streets of Paris, like other large EU cities, are VERY dangerous for pedestrians,

The many Regular bikes and scooters ignore traffic lights, travel at high speed, sometimes on sidewalks and often in opposite direction to traffic, and with two riders. Many scooter drivers are simultaneously looking at the ever present mobiles or distracted by music.

A bike or scooter collision with seniors, disabled, infants is very serious and frequent. Already several pedestrians are killed by scooters collisions, often the driver just zooms away....

Like a pilot, I navigate with extreme caution, for these lethal hazards.

Besides the rental scooters are littered and discarded everywhere even in parks and the Seine, and disfigure our beautiful city.

Last Sunday's Paris vote was 90% to ban (rental) scooters despite huge Scooter firm's money spent to defeat.

I would ban ALL scooters....and impose EU 1000 police fines....

The hazard of Lithium battery fires and cheap Chinese chargers is a separate issue.

Amicalment!

Jon

Scooters are one of the things that have become popular before they fully thought out the rules of use. The city doesn’t really know how to handle them so they have unclear rules. They’re on the sidewalks, in bike lanes, shared sidewalks, in car lanes. They don’t have horns to alert anyone in front of them. This really becomes an issue in areas with lots of pedestrian traffic.

I really worry when I see someone, usually a young person, speeding by in flip flops, shorts, no helmet and weaving in and out of traffic.

How do you feel about them.

 

[timoc]

If there was a safe lane just for scooters on the roads, I'd get one.
I had a go on one last year, it was good fun, but friends and neighbours told me that I was a daft old b*gger and to act my age as I whizzed up and down the street.

I am talking about the two wheel type.

 

[hollydolly]

They are illegal on the roads here, but people ignore that, and they are a menace. They go as fast as a car yet the riders have no licence, and no insurance and they cause multiple accidents

 

[Myrtle]

Privately owned electric scooters are one thing, taxpayer provided scooters through the idiocy of our city council are the ones that really get my blood up. They caused problems last year so I'm hoping they won't be brought back now that the weather is getting warmer.

 

[NorthernLight]

I live in a quiet area. I've only noticed a few scooters, owned by handicapped people. They use the street or the sidewalk, and seem to coexist nicely with everyone else.

Sounds like the problem is not the scooters themselves, but overcrowding. As is the case with many problems (in my opinion).

 

[Timetrvlr]

Mobility scooters are popular with us, we have three and refer to them as SRVs Senior Recreation Vehicles. We only use them on warm nice days to cruise the neighborhoods.

 

[hollydolly]

Mobility scooters are popular with us, we have three and refer to them as SRVs Senior Recreation Vehicles. We only use them on warm nice days to cruise the neighborhoods.

no not those ...these....

 

[ElCastor]

Are electric scooters popular in your locale? This whole area is tourist driven so now that it’s spring, they’re everywhere again until there’s snow. Locals use them too. They’re a speedy method of transportation.

Around here it isn’t scooters, it‘s electric bicycles. Those things aren’t that much different than a motorcycle, and as such they are expected to obey the same laws as motor vehicles, but frequently don’t.

 

[Marie5656]

Most of our stores here have them...grocery, and all. Some people living here have their own. I always use one at the store

 

[hollydolly]

Most of our stores here have them...grocery, and all. Some people living here have their own. I always use one at the store

I was talking about these Electric scooters... not disability scooters...

 

[Jules]

I've only noticed a few scooters, owned by handicapped people

yes, these are what I’m talking about.

no not those ...these....

 

[hollydolly]

yes, these are what I’m talking about.

Yes I seem to be the only one who understood you Jules....

 

[MickaC]

I think the mobile scooters were the best thing ever made…..for those that need and have them, have a chance to get out and about…..and not be stuck indoors all the time.
There are many here…..really no issues, being a small town helps…..we watch for them…..they watch for us.

I can see a lot of danger in heavy populated places.

 

[MickaC]

Looks like we’re taking about different things. .

 

[NorthernLight]

Looks like we’re taking about different things. .

On the left is a power wheelchair. On the right is a scooter.


There is some overlap, but the wheelchair is designed to negotiate tight spaces (e.g., indoors) and provides more safety and comfort for handicapped people. The scooter is good for outdoor terrain and distances.

 

[Myrtle]

Sometimes we are funny and we get a good laugh. I was talking about the kind of scooter in Hollydolly’s post where the kids go zipping around and run over the old ladies.

 

[Nathan]

Mostly dirt roads, and the county road wouldn't be scooter 'friendly'. I see some people riding to town on their lawn tractor. Not sure if that's particularly legal. The Sheriff's Dept. and Highway Patrol have bigger fish to fry.

 

[timoc]

I was talking about these Electric scooters... not disability scooters...

If there was a safe lane just for scooters on the roads, I'd get one.
I had a go on one last year, it was good fun, but friends and neighbours told me that I was a daft old b*gger and to act my age as I whizzed up and down the street.

I am talking about the two wheel type.

 

[Mike]

I read that Paris has outlawed them, starting August or September,
when the contracts with some companies that they hold to allow
them to rent scooters to the public.

Here it is strange, if you own one, you cannot take out in public places,
only rented ones are allowed, but as there are so many and no identity
plates, it is difficult to uphold the law, they require no insurance either.

31 deaths are attributed to them, since 2019, I think, here in the UK.

Mike.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

The only scooter I’ve seen around here is owned by our closest neighbour. It’s an electric scooter and he uses it occasionally to visit his mom 3 1/2 kilometres down the road and it’s fast.

This isn’t him but is what they look like

 

[NorthernLight]

Oh, so that's what you mean!

Just a few people have them around here. Again, not a problem, because there's room for everyone.

Seems like a good idea for people of limited means. For $1000 or so, you can buy a brand new "vehicle" for getting to work, etc.

 

[funsearcher!]

All over town--college town/ Not allowed on the property where I live.

 

[hollydolly]

There's an article in todays' papers by Journalist Peter Hitchens about the menace of these scooters...


I experience or witness more and more near misses involving these horrible vehicles. Recently I was walking through the City of London and instinct caused me to jump aside before a hundredweight of e-bike, doing about 30mph, came tearing by from behind, zig-zagging on the pavement.

There were no police officers to be seen, as usual.

If you try to lift an e-bike from the heaps in which they often lie, you will find them enormously heavy. The e-scooters, which are lighter, can weave into any corner and are the ideal getaway vehicle for the mugger or the fleeing pickpocket.

Up till now, Britain took the view that vehicles with engines could only be used by people with licences, and would carry proper number plates and be strictly regulated. Suddenly, these things appeared and that wise rule was dropped. Why? Perhaps we actually have a secret Cabinet Committee devoted to getting us into the Third World.

I made a fuss when they first appeared. I tried to get the attention of MPs, but, as usual, they were not interested. It looked as if someone had lobbied the Transport Department, and the supposed ‘experiments’ with e-vehicles were bound to be pronounced a success. Politicians rode them. Actors rode them in major BBC dramas. A weird, unsafe, abnormal and widely-unwanted form of transport was quickly made normal by spin.

PR bilge was spread about how they would get people out of cars. Who would swap the warmth and comfort of a car for a battery-powered tin tray bouncing and leaping among the potholes on tiny wheels, unprotected from collisions, wind or rain? Roughly nobody. But such things do appeal to those who have lost driving licences or never had them, people high on drink or drugs, and people too lazy to walk half a mile.

Surely it is important that we can walk freely in our cities and suburbs without the risk of being crunched from behind by a drugged-up lout. Don’t make me laugh by telling me these things are restricted to safe speed limits. Everyone knows how to tweak them.

Even the legal speeds are fast enough to be dangerous, as dozens of people all over the world with broken bones of various kinds can attest. That is why, a week ago, many people in Paris voted for a partial ban on e-scooters, which have spread fear there for quite a while now.

I doubt this will have much effect, alas, and, here, as usual, we shall have many years to regret another stupid, irreversible mistake.

 

[Pappy]

No, I don’t have or want an electric scooter. Not many in our community as we are all up there in age. Does a golf cart count?

 

[Lewkat]

No scooters in my area, but tons of e-bikes.