Next Up: Lime Scooters

There is a definitely split of opinion about the Limebikes sprinkled about town as you can read here.  I just saw the first Lime scooter in San Mateo and it can't be long before they are buzzing along in B'game.  The complaints in the city are growing and I anticipate the same here unless the authorities step in about where they can ride and where they can be left for the next rider.  Here's what they look like.

Comments

[HMB]

By law you need to be wearing a helmet and riding these motorized scooters in the street, NOT the sidewalk. But people zoom down the sidewalk... and dump these things on the sidewalk when they are done. Such a safety hazard...And just last week I saw some crazy come flying into a 4-way intersection from the sidewalk on a Lime e-bike. Guy did not slow down a bit. A miracle there was no accident.

[Joe]

Right on schedule, the Chronicle has a front page piece on the new limits on scooters in EssEff:

The city’s Municipal Transportation Agency also voted to charge any rental electric scooter companies applying to do business in San Francisco annual permit fees and require them to file plans on how they intend to keep their scooters from obstructing sidewalks. The vote was 5-0.

The one-year test program allows a maximum of five rental scooter companies to operate in the city at once and caps the total number of scooters allowed at 1,250 spread among the companies, for the first six months and 2,500 over the following six months.

Firms would be required to pay a $5,000 permit application fee and, if a permit were granted, a $25,000 annual fee plus they must put $10,000 into an endowment fund to cover future violations.

But Bird and the others said they would post the rules of the road prominently on their scooters as well as on the apps used to rent them: Don’t ride on sidewalks, do wear a helmet, don’t park blocking sidewalks. They also said they would post a toll-free number on each scooter for people to report improperly parked scooters that the companies would then come out and remove.

Spin said it would require users to scan a driver’s license to rent a scooter and would ask them to rate how well the previous user parked the device. LimeBike promised to give away helmets and require users to take photos of their parked scooters at the end of a ride. Bird also said it would ask riders to take pictures of their parked scooters and would encourage them to park at “nests,” locations on private property where multiple scooters can be parked.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Scooter-skirmish-City-ready-to-place-limits-on-12878761.php

[hollyroller]

Dear Half Moon Bay.
Scooters are fun.
If you get into a Scooter/Human accident, a Scooter/Scooter accident, Scooter/Business accident, on and on, "The City of Burlingame" will pay all bills.
That is what happens when any local community Council supersedes current CDMV with their own "feel good, BS."
Scooters are fun.

[Joe]

Gotta love this from the UK Guardian:

So one has to wonder what a Silicon Valley startup was thinking when it programmed its electric scooters to yell at people: “Unlock me to ride me, or I’ll call the police.”

A female voice from within Lime’s e-scooters shouts the threat to anyone who tries to fiddle with the rides without downloading the app and paying. The company has also set their rides to blast cartoonish robot noises so loud that heads turn on busy city streets.

The threat immediately repeats on high volume and is the first and only sound the scooter makes. The words blare after less than a minute of a person standing on and exploring the buttons of the scooters, which Lime has been on with little warning and without government approval.

There’s no evidence that the obnoxious feature actually leads to an automated call to police. Asked about the Lime scooter’s threatening message – which a Guardian reporter discovered while standing on one of the newly arrived scooters in Oakland – local officials in numerous cities expressed a range of disdain and confusion.