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.
Dockless bikes have caused bike litter all over the Dallas metroplex. Several companies have given up due to the number of bikes that have been trashed.
Soon we will have scooter litter.
I can do without this innovation.
Who does the recharge?
Who pays for the scooter initially?
What is the business model?
“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.”
Yup. Stay away from the student council types if you can.
“San Francisco said they “endanger public health and safety.” City attorney Dennis Herrera complained about “broken bones, bruises, and near misses.”
But excrement and urine on the sidewalks is A-OK. Never mind the laundry list of illnesses associated with coming in contact with human waste....you’ll swell up a little bit, but you’ll be ok. ;)
Scooters are a blast. Used them in several cities now. Fun, cheap and easy to get around as transportation and to see the city.
You’ll never find ‘em in SF bay:
In San Francisco the main problem would be that these scooters might slip on the human $hit that covers the city’s streets and sidewalks,thus causing unimaginable mayhem.
Some one could do this with rifles. Need temporary protection in open carry mode? Pick up a rifle from the corner, activate it with the app, travel to destination, exit transitional space (go inside), leave it on the ground for the next civilian needing some open carry protection.
San Francisco is concerned about a maybe injury but does not care about a definable disease situation?
Avoiding DNA samples in SF must be a challenge on those scooter thingies.
I’ve never been a fan of any business model that is built on simply exploiting loopholes in existing laws and regulations. Eventually reality catches up to them, and they lose their competitive edge. Once that happens, they become just like the crony-capitalist businesses they undersold in the market (see Uber in NYC as a perfect example of this).
If I had a scooter company I would give the homeless in San Francisco free scooters, that would break the issue with the City!
Yeah, like do not use drugs in public, do not leave AIDS infected needles all over the place, do not scream at them sky or pedestrians, keep the bums off the streets, no sleeping in doorways or on sidewalks, no defecating or urinating in public, do not deface buildings with graffiti, put insane people in institutions. Nope, can't enforce those rules in the public square.
But new scooter rules? You betcha!!
The business model is to pretend to have a business model well enough to attract investors willing to suspend belief in order to get in on the ground floor for The Next Big Thing.
Don’t kill scooters. Let’s see where they take us.
IN NYC....to the hospital most likely
take a look at the size of the wheels in the pic....
NYC has potholes 10x that size....
i have a scooter withwheels that size... a swagtron .... and yo ahve to be really watchful because sidewalk cracks and pebbles twigs etc can cause issues...
it is fun though...
SF.....truly bizarro world. Glad I live about as far away from cali and still be in the lower 48 as I do.
They’re not selling scooters.
They’re not selling rides.
They’re selling stock.
They have started throwing them off the cliffs into the ocean in San Diego.
The city banned scooters knowing that the sidewalk crap poses loss of control accidents. A crap related accident poses a negligence liability for the city.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.