[_fullpint]

Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective.

My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs.

On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to all the 'trendy' spots often opting to use these scooters.

More often than not they park them right in the middle of the sidewalk. The side walk that the strollers, canes and wheelchairs use on a daily basis. Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way.

[burlesona]

You should stop seeing scooters as the enemy. Scooter companies represent a lot of money that wants more space for pedestrians, bikes, and of course scooters in the city. They are a potential massive ally with deep pockets to push back against the car lobby. The battle here is not to fight over who has the right to be on the 10% of the street we call the sidewalk, it’s to take back some of the 90% of the street that’s reserved for cars so that everyone else has room.

Sure we can and should do better with providing bike and scooter parking… as an example one easy solution is to convert 1-2 on-street car parking spaces per block to bike and scooter parking. There’s enormous value in having big corporate allies in such a fight.

[lkbm]

I agree, but right now it feels like the scooter companies have decided it's easier to inconvenience pedestrians than to ally with us and fight car culture.

I'm a huge fan of the idea of plentiful, cheap scooters for short trips, and was excited to have a new cohort of people who would want more safe bike (and scooter) routes. Alas, as much as I love the concept, I've developed a strong dislike for the companies.

I've little doubt that they could dramatically reduce the amount of improper scooter parking, but it would involve punishing their customers, and that would hurt their growth in the short term, for the unimportant benefit of avoiding crushing regulatory responses on the long term.

We didn't choose for them to be our enemies. We were natural allies. But they decided they'd fight us than have to combat the real problem.

[Symbiote]

If Copenhagen's experience is normal, then ample bicycle (etc) parking won't change the parking behaviour of rental scooter users. They will still dump them on the sidewalk (or in the bike lane) the instant their journey has finished. They'll also ride two or three on one scooter, without any awareness or regard for cyclists in the bike lane or pedestrians crossing the road.

I strongly suspect the companies encouraged their staff to put them in slightly annoying places as advertisements -- if you trip over a scooter, you've noticed the brand!

Copenhagen ended up banning them from the city centre.

https://www.eltis.org/in-brief/news/e-scooters-allowed-back-...

(Copenhagen already has pedestrian and bicycle space, so the scooter companies weren't bringing anything there -- only taking that space away. Many other cities are so bad, the scooter companies are probably still a positive influence even with the terrible riders.)

[Kaze404]

I would be glad to not see scooters as the enemy if they weren't so dangerous for everyone involved. Though I guess space is a big factor in that, now that I think about it.

[aahortwwy]

No thanks.

I spent five years living on a street with very large sidewalks (at least triple-wide, if not quadruple wide). Cyclists and scooter riders were just as inconsiderate of pedestrians. Traveling at dangerous speed, weaving across the whole sidewalk, and parking the vehicles in remarkably inconvenient spots were all very common behaviors.

The problem is cultural. People in larger, faster, more dangerous vehicles seem to think they have right of way in shared spaces and that everyone else should get out of their way. Anyone who's ridden a bicycle or a scooter on a road also used by cars will have experienced this.

Compare this to Tokyo, where there's less space, more of it is shared, but people don't behave like I've described above.

[_fullpint]

> the battle here is not to fight over who has the right to be on the 10% of the street we call the sidewalk

I'm not asking for 10% of the sidewalk for myself -- that's ~4.8 inches, which is much less of the space needed for a stroller, a person with a cane, or someone in a wheelchair.

I don't see any lobbying, let alone any actions from these companies that ensure that the quality of the lives of the people I mentioned isn't negatively impacted. What I do see is rent seeking and extraction of public value for there own profits.

Lobbying is great, but they aren't doing anything currently to actually curb their users from partaking in reducing the use of public space for those that can't simply 'walk around it and pray their lobbying works one day.'

[mkl]

Scooter companies aren't in it for the long haul like that. I've seen four different scooter companies come and go in my city (well, the fourth hasn't gone yet). They seem to buy a batch of scooters, keep them in service until they've made back their investment or lost too many scooters, then disappear. They don't care about the disruption and inconvenience they cause, or the ways they could make the city better, because they don't even see those things - they don't seem to have a presence here beyond a few gig-employees charging scooters.

[mulmen]

I hate the rental scooters and bikes. It’s just trash in my way. I live in an area that already has great walking and cycling options, but the scooters make that much less enjoyable.

But you are right and I hadn’t considered the benefits. So thanks for posting this.

Because of all the scooter trouble the city has reclaimed some parking spaces for scooters. So that is a step in the right direction. And if it gets people out of their houses and seeing where the bike infrastructure works and doesn’t that’s probably good for future expansion too.

[jonnycomputer]

Tell me that when I trip over them in the dark, or when they're buried under a foot of snow.

[trainsarebetter]

This. end the stroads!

[thepasswordis]

> Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way.

So you make the problem worse?

Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why?

I live in a major downtown full of these scooters. When I see them blocking something, I just move them. Why is this so difficult? It takes such a tiny amount of effort to fix this problem you are describing. You live in a society, and it’s your responsibility to contribute.

[freeopinion]

Perhaps it is human nature to want to inflict harm on those we perceive to be causing harm. This rarely leads to the best outcome. So I would love to hear from cooler heads that could improve the following idea and take the pointless retribution out of it:

It is not enough to kick over a scooter. We need to tag repeat offenders and increase the severity of the response. For instance, paint one handlebar grip on the first infraction, then the other grip on the second, then a seat, headlight/taillight, etc. A scooter that has been tagged enough can have the tires flattened, spokes broken, etc.

Clearly, there are numerous flaws with the solution above. It's really a terrible idea. To some degree it shows the flaws with kicking over offending scooters.

Alternatively, you could hire enforcement officers to issue citations. That also has flaws. You could build a system that allows random citizens to document offenses in a credible way and then have authorities act on repeated offenses. Also not without problems.

Perhaps coloring the scenario differently might help. Imagine, for instance, that a certain neighborhood house is popular with the neighborhood children. The children frequently ride their bikes to the house and leave their bikes strewn in the driveway, the front yard, and on the sidewalk. What would be an appropriate series of responses? How could you build a system that protects against a grumpy neighbor abusing whatever escalation mechanism you devise?

[rad_gruchalski]

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access?

Because you’ll be doing this over and over again. How about those companies educate their users how to behave in a neighbourhood where those people are basically guests?

[gwbas1c]

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes

Wow, if a 3-4 minute walk involves 10 scooters that's now almost a 25-minute walk.

It's not the OP's job to clean up after everyone else.

[avereveard]

No lol, it's the other people responsibility not to be a nuisance.

But I agree throwing them aside is not the optimal solution.

Municipality looking for money could get some large cash influx from ticketing improperly parked scooters, the owning company can decide to eat the loss or flip the ticket on the user, either way people will get educated fast.

It would only take for the law enforcement to enforce rules that are already there

[cmmeur01]

It also said “and out of the way”.

How is getting them out of the way, on their side or not, worsening the situation?

[squeaky-clean]

Moving one scooter aside doesn't fix the problem. Also they said they move them aside, the only difference between them and you is they knock the scooters over. I don't see how they're worsening the problem by moving the scooters aside.

[_fullpint]

> Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why?

Uh... I said out of the way. I push them onto the easement required by the city which is grass from the curb to the sidewalk.

There is no way that this is in any way "worse." Especially due to the fact that they are usually in the way via being not parallel.

[chasd00]

In Dallas everyone started loading them up in trucks and throwing them into the lake. The city quickly banned them.

[JaimeThompson]

>So you make the problem worse?

It might make the problem worse in the short term but maybe those leaving them in the middle will move them out of the way in the future possibly reducing the issue long term.

[Robotbeat]

Riffing on your comment, but I think there has been a general increase in antisociality in the last few years (especially since the pandemic, which has traumatized society). Like people leaving scooters haphazardly lying around or you pushing over delivery robots instead of pushing them out of the way. People feel more and more justified to engage in antisocial behavior. And it feeds on itself. You see this as being anti-social behavior by the robot companies, therefore justify engaging in more antisocial behavior.

I wonder if anyone has an index that measures how often people leave carts randomly in a parking lot or in the actual corrals (not counting stores that incentivize it with a quarter). Would be a good measure of pro- or anti-sociality.

[Freak_NL]

With these scooters, bicycles, mopeds for rent; and delivery robots it's also a form of not very nice but justifiable resistance in lieu of better ways.

Remember the sudden onslaught of Chinese app-rentable bicycles in cities around the world a few years back? Near useless pieces of unrepairable plastic, steel, and rubber clogging up the pavement (sidewalk) because technically this was not illegal. Several companies competing in a race to become the biggest one in any given city. In many cases it ended after new legislation and citizens demanding action; often spurred on by activists using the same fuck-you tactics these companies used to put them everywhere, but in reverse (often by means of gently chucking them in a canal).

Putting stuff for rent all over public space or abusing the commons otherwise with the explicit aim of first becoming the dominant party in a mad gold rush, and only then negotiate about rules and limits afterwards is quite antisocial too. Responding tit-for-tat is not classy, but some people feel they have little recourse, especially if municipalities are (at first) taken in by the greenwashing ideals of some of these companies.

[_fullpint]

Not too sure how pushing scooters out of the way to remove barriers for people who cannot go around them is "antisocial." Especially when those people are neighbors and are in need.

The companies and their users -- the companies don't have structures to prevent their users from leaving their property in right of way, their users leave the companies' property in the spaces preventing those in need of using the space -- are the ones partaking in antisocial behavior.

[rosndo]

> but I think there has been a general increase in antisociality in the last few years (especially since the pandemic, which has traumatized society)

It makes sense that people who feel that they’ve been unfairly imprisoned in their homes by the rest of society would feel rather bitter about that.

To restore faith societies could take steps to compensate those worst hit by pandemic measures (i.e young people), so far that hasn’t happened.

[Cthulhu_]

The county should act; assign parking spaces for these things, fine the companies if they find any outside of the designated spaces. The companies can sort it out with their customers.

We are seeing the same thing with electric scooters and bikes (and they get torched sometimes), they get parked anywhere and the county's on board with it because it's "green".

This was NOT as much of a problem with rental bikes in e.g. London, because they had designated stations for picking up and parking them; the user would get charged extra if they did not park their bike up properly.

[nikanj]

We gave about 95% of the street for cars+parking cars, and are now frustrated that the sidewalks aren’t wide enough for mixed use.

There would be no issues with fitting the bikes and the scooters, if the middle of the street was also freely available

[burlesona]

This regulatory overreaction is how we got to the present environment where nobody can build anything anywhere and we have a housing crisis that is severely harming people around the world. No thanks.

[sharken]

Electric scooters have been heavily regulated where i live, helmet is now required and you have to leave them at designated locations. And a photo upload showing how it was parked is now also required.

Oh, and Friday and Saturday between 00 and 05, you cannot use the scooters.

It kinda makes me sad that we can't just let people use scooters as they please, but as you observe that isn't working.

It was much the same with drones, which is now also heavily regulated, e.g. you must maintain a certain distance to buildings.

[Ekaros]

City bikes which have stations seem much better option. At least if run by city itself, higher installation cost, but means that they are much more orderly.

[rtlfe]

> helmet is now required

FYI some context on bike helmet laws: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/04/06/56408419/seattle...

[0xbadcafebee]

The thing is there's no designated place to park them. You can't put them on the property line next to the sidewalk. Many sidewalks don't have a "planter" or other non-walking area. Sidewalks weren't designed for this. I think we should ban sidewalk scooter parking. The public right of way is not a parking lot for private companies.

As an aside: many (most?) people who need sidewalks choose to use the road instead because the sidewalks are inaccessible. Snow and ice doesn't get removed from all sidewalks (regardless of what regulations say), tree roots breaking up the pavement don't get repaired, large inclines/declines are a safety hazard. I know a regular-abled person whose face got mangled as she was riding her bike on a sidewalk and hit a chunk of unrepaired sidewalk and went over. Sidewalks need a redesign.

[rosndo]

> The thing is there's no designated place to park them.

We have designated parking spots for rideshare scooters in London.

[dublinben]

>The public right of way is not a parking lot for private companies.

Yet we often dedicate 50% of our roadway for the storage of private automobiles, and this is okay?

[Accacin]

So a minor inconvenience for cleaner air in your neighbourhood?

Ofc, I feel for disabled people in this situation, but personally I'll pick one up or move it if I see that it's in the way.

Here when the were first released, the parking was a bit scuffed, but recently it seems people have been making a much greater effort to park them correctly.

[Cthulhu_]

That's still very dismissive of anyone using the sidewalks. Good for you that you pick up someone else's shit, but it's not a solution. These companies should take responsibility and fix the problem.

[showerst]

This is my _exact_ experience, I end up having to move at least two a week to get our stroller past, and they are a huge pain when my wheelchair-bound mother visits.

I consider myself a law abiding person but have been sorely tempted to load them up into a truck and toss them into the Chesapeake ...

[ctoth]

Good lord. I'm blind, walk with a cane. Let me tell you the number of times I have to walk around someone parked on the sidewalk, or in a residential neighborhood find someone has their driveway filled with cars so I have to walk out in the street to get around, or someone's doing yard work and has stuff scattered on the sidewalk in front of the house or...

Where's my law-abiding help to deal with this? It kinda just feels like somebody's got a hate on for scooters.

[Cthulhu_]

Toss them onto all the access roads and grounds of the company that owns them instead, maybe they'll take a hint.

[AJ007]

The other big problem is the trucks that drive around constantly loading/unloading the scooters. Often they park on the sidewalk, fully blocking anyone from getting through. One time I saw a driver back in to a woman was as trying to cross the street with a baby carriage.

Unfortunate side effect of the past capital incineration years. If it doesn’t make sense to have unlocked bike-share, it definitely doesn’t make sense to do it with electric scooters.

[watwut]

> The side walk that the strollers, canes and wheelchairs use on a daily basis. Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way.

Way better approach is to take phone and send complain to company that runs these. At least in our city, they do in fact end contracts with people who park them wrong. The threat and actual drivers who lost the ability to use scooters makes others park better.

[ShakataGaNai]

Sadly the problem is not the scooters themselves. They don't park themselves at random. The problem is the people.

If, in general, people were just at tiny bit more respectful of others around them - the world would be a lot better off.

[rtlfe]

The real problem is that car manufactures have lobbied to give every scrap of space to car storage. If we took back parking lanes to dramatically expand sidewalks, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

[grishka]

The scooter rental companies in my city have a rule in their contacts specifically prohibiting parking such that it would block the sidewalk. And you have to take a picture of the scooter when you end your rent.

[nabilhat]

> Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective.

Same here, but from a different angle. If the scooters were the problem, we'd have had the same problem when Car2Go was a thing. But, car infrastructure in the US is so overbuilt that Car2Go didn't even register on the radar in terms of free street parking. Cars improperly abandoned that impede car traffic are quickly resolved.

The nonmotorized infrastructure in the US is so begrudgingly inept that adversarial design wouldn't look much different. If there's a rent-a-scooter inconveniencing the token pedestrian path next to on street parking, I've simply been moving the scooters into on street parking. A single scooter fits between spaces, or only consumes <5% of the length of a standard 20 foot space. Surely drivers complain loudly, but they won't be inconvenienced unless they go out of their way to toss a scooter into the middle of the sidewalk; an accurate metaphor for how sidewalks got to be so terrible in the first place.

[30385421]

I am heartened to hear that I am not the only one who does this. I feel the same about the Al Fresco dining set-ups. Happy that restaurants got more space for their business but angered that it comes at the cost of accessibility for wheelchair users and others like them.

[_fullpint]

This grind my gears so fucking much! You are running your business not only on property that isn't yours, but the public's -- AND it's an inconvenience to every person who walks by in a busy neighborhood, some that absolutely need the sidewalk.

[netsharc]

Someone, who for legal reasons is not me, has the idea to make stickers with strong glue and cheap paper (so they can't be ripped off in one go) to stick on top of the QR codes to these things. The sticker would have text that says "Sorry you can't use this scooter because the last rider parked like an idiot."

[josephcsible]

So "someone" thinks it's okay to vandalize other people's property just because the last person to use it didn't put it away right?

[kwertyoowiyop]

It’s a frustrating problem, but isn’t it better to not be a jerk?

[atleta]

I have similar feelings. Though I don't hate the scooters per se. I'm pretty upset with the idiots who leave them right in the middle of the side walks AND the companies that don't do anything about it. They could pretty easily penalize the users for leaving these in the wrong place if they wanted to.

Now I actually don't understand at all why they don't do it. On the surface, you can say that they don't give a shit about non-users, they just care about their customers and they are afraid of scaring them away. However, where I live (Budapest, Hungary) these have already been banned from the centermost district of the city. The district, the area most frequented by tourists. As it was predictable.

Also, the city mayor came up with a regulation so that they'll designate several hundred e-scooter parking lots throughout the inner city and leaving these anywhere but those places will results in the company being fined. Which is a smart and friendly move, because there will be indeed lots of lots :) . But it's still a lot worse than if the e-scooter companies have solved it for themselves because then you'd still be able to leave them almost anywhere.

Actually I see two king of annoying parking habits. The first one is the completely reckless, when they literally leave it in the middle of the walking path of everyone. I sometimes even think that it's deliberate. Like wanting to show off or something. "I'll just leave it here in the middle, so that everyone can see it." Quite often right in the front of zebra crossings.

The other one is more like sheer stupidity. When they do park it besides a wall, but they do it as if it was a car. So 45 degrees, with front wheel to the wall. But that doesn't make much sense, because you want it to be out of the way (which almost always means parallel to the wall, preferably leaning towards the wall and not leaning away from the wall).

This is all pretty sad because e-scooters, while I think they are dangerous to ride, are pretty cool and efficient vehicles. And being able to pick up one on the street, though more expensive than owning one, very convenient for the occasional user. (I mostly ride a bike though, and pre-covid I used to use a kick scooter + public transport.)

[reaperducer]

I just knock the things over and push them out of the way.

Start "putting them away" for the careless people. In dumpsters. Pretty soon the scooter companies will figure out a solution.

[dheera]

What if they set up the scooter system such that if you parked the previous scooter incorrectly, the next scooter you rent squirts water on your pants? It's not technologically that difficult.

Or put little fisheye cameras on every scooter and if you park it incorrectly every scooter you walk past for the next 24 hours uses face recognition and blasts insults at you unless you go back and re-park it correctly.

[slickdork]

I've often wondered why scooter companies don't keep metrics on their users, and punish the ones who use their product poorly (donuts, bad parking, use on sidewalks, etc) and came to the conclusion that these antisocial users are very likely the scooter companies largest consumer base. The scooter companies are likely incentivized to not regulate.

[renewiltord]

This is one of those online exaggerations. Occasionally some people will behave badly. Just like sometimes you’ll see people stop their cars on the sidewalk or whatever. It’s fine.

[iamleppert]

When I see a car blocking a drive way, I flatten its tires and bash its windows in. Makes me feel good and now most of the cars on my street are damaged.

[josephcsible]

Yes, let's make innocent people crash their cars! That'll teach the people who left the scooters there a lesson!

[CPLX]

How selfish of you. You should take more than 2 minutes and spend the time to throw them in a nearby body of water and solve the problem more permanently.

[coldpie]

Please don't pollute our waterways. Place them where they belong--into a nearby dumpster or the middle of the street.