[colept]

Loved BIRD when they first started here in San Jose but now they're painfully slow (~12mph) while Lime has managed to keep top speed around 20mph.

BIRD has an edge in terms of availability but I find myself taking one to find a Lime.

[kylec]

I played around with the scooters in San Jose during WWDC last week, and I have to say that I preferred the Bird ones. While the Lime ones did have a faster top speed, they were also slower to accelerate. When driving on the sidewalks there's a lot of slowing down, so getting back up to speed quickly is more important in my opinion. Plus ~12mph is fast enough IMO, it feels dangerous to go much faster than that.

[jessaustin]

Why are you driving on the sidewalks? Please stop doing that!

[gamblor956]

Bird slowed down their scooters to maintain battery life and because it was part of the terms of their settlement with Santa Monica. I assume they simply applied that software update fleetwide.

[jondwillis]

But, seemingly, only the newer ones with the paddles for both the acceleration and braking are limited to 12mph. The old ones still go faster in my limited experience.