Posted on 09/12/2018 4:24:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
I just zipped down a city street on an electric scooter. It cost me 15 cents a minute. Fast and fun!
My scooter was just lying on the ground. I picked it up, activated it with my phone and rode away. When I was done, I simply abandoned it.
Won't it be stolen? No, because you need an app to activate the scooter and a GPS device keeps track of it.
My wife loves using the newish Citi Bike shared bicycles that are locked in a big dock near our apartment. They were a good innovation.
But then entrepreneurs came up with "dockless" bikes. They're even better.
Better still are these shared scooters. They're small, flexible, cheap and convenient. Maybe these scooters will be the next revolution in urban transit!
But politicians may kill them off before we get a chance to find out how useful they are.
Some places have already banned the scooters. San Francisco said they "endanger public health and safety." City attorney Dennis Herrera complained about "broken bones, bruises, and near misses."
Sigh. Yet San Francisco also complains about not having enough transportation options.
In San Francisco and other cities, scooter companies tried doing what Uber and Airbnb did: They dodged destructive regulation by simply putting their services out on the street, hoping that by the time sleepy regulators noticed them, they would be too popular to ban.
That worked for Uber and Airbnb. We consumers got cool new ways to travel and alternatives to hotels, and investors got rich -- all because they didn't ask for permission. Permissionless innovation brings good things.
But flying under the radar is harder for scooter companies. Scooters on sidewalks are very visible.
"Unfortunately," Mercatus Center tech policy analyst Jennifer Skees told me for my latest video, "cities haven't learned from their experiences with companies like Uber and Airbnb. They want innovators to come ask for permission and go through the regulatory processes."
But the "regulatory processes" take years. "That prevents consumers from accessing a transportation option that could be accessible now!" said Skees.
After a four-month ban, San Francisco granted permits to two small scooter companies. The politicians stiffed Lime and Bird, the innovators that started the business -- presumably because they didn't kiss the politicians' rings and beg for permission first.
Still, even I acknowledge that there may be a role for government here. A public square needs some rules. Scooters, especially speedy electric scooters, can be dangerous.
"We haven't seen a large number of accidents or injuries," says Skees. "We don't ban bicycles because somebody might get hurt. ... Social norms (like hand signals) will evolve."
Whenever there's something new, the media hype the problems. The L.A. Times reports that some people hate the scooters so much that they "have been crammed into toilets, tossed off balconies and set on fire." Internet videos show scooters abandoned in the Pacific Ocean.
But scooter companies say the vandalism isn't so bad.
"It's a low percentage," said Lime's Maggie Gendron. In one city, "we had 10,000 rides and 18 vandalism complaints."
I wanted to try out scooters in my state, New York, but I couldn't, because craven politicians who claim to represent me banned scooters.
So I took our camera crews to a city that's been more reasonable.
Oddly, that's a place that overregulates most everything: Washington, D.C. But the capital embraced scooters.
So, the district has transportation that is green and good exercise and takes up less space than cars.
Maybe politicians will find it in their hearts to leave scooters, their makers and customers alone.
One innovation can make many others possible.
Cars take people to jobs they couldn't do in their own neighborhoods, allowing them to collaborate with people they might never have met if they walked or rode horses.
Planes, trains and ships bring down costs by allowing inventors to use exotic materials they can't find in their own back yards.
If any of those forms of transportation had been crushed by regulation, we'd never know how many benefits we'd lost.
Don't kill scooters. Let's see where they take us.
DH has his own scooter which quickly gets him the last mile to work from where public transit drops him off. It’s been great for his commute.
In California, they’re throwing them in the ocean.
These things have become a nuisance on the sidewalks of Indianapolis, and it’s not going to get any better.
If the operator of that uninsured scooter drives through a red light and you run him over, guess whose insurance carrier is going to be paying a major claim even if you did absolutely nothing wrong?
I was listening to morning drive radio and they were saying there was probably 500 bikes around their building many of which had been thrown in the river.
How can you make a profit?
Permission less innovation has brought unprecedented congestion to San Francisco. It is easily observed that every 4th or 5th car downtown is a ride share. Traffic has been destroyed.
It is NOT taking cars off the street. People use it instead of the bus.
Now if they took the buses off the street it might make up for it...
...and program the GPS to take th homeless outside the city. Maybe take them to Burning Man.
They make a profit so called by blowing through venture capital. Just like Uber which has never made a profit and run through multiple billions.
Their business model DOES NOT MAKE A PROFIT and I can’t see that it ever will.
Darty little scooters in a dense urban environment? It’s insane. Libertarians may advocate a free for all but they are creating accidents and I see parents with kids running around in the crazy traffic. It is not ok.
How about an armed drone which only needs a coded laser target-designator to paint the target. Keep your subscription up to date, and call down a ground support airstrike on demand.
When I was a kid riding my bike in NYC, potholes weren't that big a problem, bigger wheels and not many potholes. Trolley tracks were another matter entirely. Get into one and suddenly, "no steering!" How do those scooter wheels match up with "light rail" tracks.
>>How can you make a profit?<<
Apparently some cannot.
I think the remaining vendors are hoping the novelty of destroying the bikes just for the heck of it will wear off and the bikes will just be part of the landscape like parking meters or something.
South Lake Tahoe has been trashed with them.
Riders are usually visitors, and they go WAAAAY too fast.
And yet, cement skateboard parks are all the rage in cities across the nation. Kids are getting horrendous injuries in them.
Years ago my city banned fast pitch softball, because someone might get injured.
The key difference is that bicycles are intended to be used on the streets. The scooters will be operated on sidewalks. A "scooter-pedestrian" collision is therefore far, far more likely that a bike-pedestrian crash.
One has to differentiate between these electrified kiddy toys and real, street-legal electric scooters.
To get the permits, each company has to demonstrate that it'll provide user education on sidewalk riding and parking, be insured and have a privacy policy to safeguard users' information. The companies also need to share trip data with the city and offer a plan for low-income riders.
Low income riders? Maybe they can use their EBT cards and ride free! https://www.cnet.com/news/san-francisco-scooter-law-means-goodbye-to-electric-scooters-for-now/
Answering my own question. Here’s how they get recharged (and yes some people steal them and sell the batteries for cash) - https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/
Probably safer than rickshaws. Better run it by Rebecca DeMornay, though. Don't want her mad at you.
“Who does the recharge?”
Anyone can freelance using an app to round up the scooters and charge them, then drop them back off and get paid for it.
“Who pays for the scooter initially?”
The company renting the scooters?
How about a homing robot scooter than can drive you home from the bar on autopilot when you’re loaded?
Got to be a market for that.
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