This website has a lot of attention grabbing popups =( It's pretty irritating to be reading an article and get interrupted.
> in other Bird-seeded cities, muggers have followed chargers heading into less-populated areas. Some chargers reported being victims of theft
Reminds me of Craigslist scams. The solution for CL scams was to only meet in public/safe areas, what is the solution for these muggers? Send a officer sometimes to sting sketchy bait scooters?
I wish Mexico City's Mobike[1] had someone running around at night finding bikes - I swear, every day there are less and less on the streets. I've given up even bothering to look for any near me and have gone back to walking to the nearest ecobici stand or calling an uber.
"Mobike, which recently changed hands for $2.7 billion, equips its bicycles with an electronic alarm that alerts the company when one of them leaves its operating zone."
Yeah that doesn't work - I always rode one to neighbouring areas without even thinking about it, and there is no disincentive. Reporting a bike that says it's on the street, but is actually in someone's yard behind a fence, takes 3 days to get a response in the hope that the bad actor gets their account revoked.
I gave up on car2go for similar reasons. On the rare occasion that I could actually find the car I'd reserved, it was parked in private parking. There were allegedly punishments for doing this, but they never seemed to make the practice any less common.
What i do not understand is how these collectors are expected to enter non-public areas to retrieve company property. Railway tracks? Id punish the person who left it there. The rule should be that you leave it in a safe public place. Then again, leave anything in public place for too long and you should be charged with littering. Seeing these things lying around waiting to be picked up is depressing. I wish i could just leave my stuff in the city park and pick it up a few days later.
I wish that were the case. At least in my city, every night the birds are gone. I've grown to like them, but using them to go home from the pub or anything latenight hasn't happened for me.
I assume Chargers are picking them up to take home no matter the state of charge. So in that case I guess that's how Bird gets around the littering laws. They aren't abandoned if they are retrieved every night.
I've seen an uptick in the city of different pedestrian-ish modes of transit: bikes, e-bikes, skateboards, electric skateboards, unicycles (at least near GT), roller blades, all kinds of other stuff, and now Bird scooters are part of the mix. Anything that helps Atlantans get from here to there without a car is a net positive in my book. The Bird scooters being electric also help combat the downside of navigating a hilly city in the summer heat. I really hope that Bird users can continue to be and/or learn to be good citizens: staying off the Beltline, not ditching the scooters on train tracks or private property, etc.
In Atlanta the scooters are only scattered throughout a small section of Midtown, so while they are a kind of novelty in that area, I've never encountered one outside of that 1-2 mile radius which is mostly comprised of park and Beltline.
Does anyone in ATL know if people are using these on the Beltline? I'm almost certain it's 'not allowed' but the beltline does make for an interesting pairing with the scooters if it wasn't so crowded in the midtown part.
Midtown is the hotspot and unfortunetly where I commute to work. Really hope the fad goes away. Biking is much better for you and I’m happy Atlanta is embracing bikes. Dekalb has planned a connection between Path and the beltline.
People are absolutely using these on the Beltline. I even the other day saw a whole flock of Bird riders pass two of the Beltline bike cops, and neither officer so much as batted an eye.
They're on the Beltline every day. I nearly got mowed down by a flock of teenage girls on bird scooters the other day. They were riding side by side and didn't seem to care about pedestrians.
I wish the app would turn the Beltline into a deadzone and shut the scooters down.
I hope these go away fast. Read about them first on HN and how they were cluttering streets in SF. Now I can see what they mean. I ride public transport to work in Atlanta and find them all over the sidewalks in Midtown. The past month has been much worse. They are literally laying sideways on sidewalks blocking people.
Aren't there bad actors in every space, especially with new technology that stands out or is new to a community?
I'm yet to see them where I live, though we do have Ofo shared bikes here which have often fallen over which looks a bit crap. But I'm keen to see the scooters arrive. Seems like a great option which requires limited storage/parking space.
There's some sort of social media astroturfing going on, it's pretty obvious b/w the more "modern" news sites (and some not) and Reddit/HN. Lots of contentless posts or biased headlines/reviews.
>“It’s pretty funny — there’s a place where someone keeps putting them on train tracks, so there’s like 20 on these random train tracks,” [Shahid] says.
Should put 20 on the tracks and one neatly parked off to the side, so the chargers take the one with least risk. It doesn't look like they're paid more to retrieve scooters in dangerous locations.
I'm a little puzzled about why Shahid thinks this is 'funny', as it seems pretty obnoxious. The danger posed is not limited to Shahid but also the trains, their operators and passengers/freight.
But I'm also puzzled by your comment. Why should anyone put any of them on the tracks?
[+] [-] ddtaylor|7 years ago|reply
> in other Bird-seeded cities, muggers have followed chargers heading into less-populated areas. Some chargers reported being victims of theft
Reminds me of Craigslist scams. The solution for CL scams was to only meet in public/safe areas, what is the solution for these muggers? Send a officer sometimes to sting sketchy bait scooters?
[+] [-] jpopesculian|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fifnir|7 years ago|reply
asks to send notifications,
content-covering social media bar with bright colours that follows you around,
subscription box that follows you around,
and of course the good old WAIT BEFORE YOU GO thing when you scroll away,
it's like a demo of all annoying dev practices
[+] [-] kyleblarson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] telesilla|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-crime-mobike/bike-...
"Mobike, which recently changed hands for $2.7 billion, equips its bicycles with an electronic alarm that alerts the company when one of them leaves its operating zone."
Yeah that doesn't work - I always rode one to neighbouring areas without even thinking about it, and there is no disincentive. Reporting a bike that says it's on the street, but is actually in someone's yard behind a fence, takes 3 days to get a response in the hope that the bad actor gets their account revoked.
[+] [-] _rpd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sandworm101|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symbiote|7 years ago|reply
Isn't that what on-street parking for cars is, except each car takes up 20× as much space?
There are some bike racks near me which are positioned in what was a car parking space, making a nice comparison.
[1] is the basic version, [2] to make a point.
[1] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_I4uxRsnmym8/TM5_oAi1I8I/AAAAAAAAAZ...
[2] http://mat2.materialicious.com/images/car-shaped-bike-rack-b...
[+] [-] yardie|7 years ago|reply
I assume Chargers are picking them up to take home no matter the state of charge. So in that case I guess that's how Bird gets around the littering laws. They aren't abandoned if they are retrieved every night.
[+] [-] framebit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] creaghpatr|7 years ago|reply
Does anyone in ATL know if people are using these on the Beltline? I'm almost certain it's 'not allowed' but the beltline does make for an interesting pairing with the scooters if it wasn't so crowded in the midtown part.
[+] [-] wil421|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dointheatl|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] echelon|7 years ago|reply
I wish the app would turn the Beltline into a deadzone and shut the scooters down.
[+] [-] Multicomp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wil421|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] prawn|7 years ago|reply
I'm yet to see them where I live, though we do have Ofo shared bikes here which have often fallen over which looks a bit crap. But I'm keen to see the scooters arrive. Seems like a great option which requires limited storage/parking space.
[+] [-] atwebb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheBeardKing|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lainga|7 years ago|reply
Should put 20 on the tracks and one neatly parked off to the side, so the chargers take the one with least risk. It doesn't look like they're paid more to retrieve scooters in dangerous locations.
[+] [-] wyldfire|7 years ago|reply
But I'm also puzzled by your comment. Why should anyone put any of them on the tracks?