>not the scooter rider that made an illegal turn in front of an SUV which tried but failed to break in time to avoid hitting him

I rented a Lime S scooter in Louisville, Kentucky this weekend. It became apparent after about a block that the brake was completely non-functional. I parked the scooter, ended the ride, and reported that it had a defective brake...but yet it remained available for rent in the Lime app anyway. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The more I think about it, the more I regret not tossing the scooter into the nearest dumpster after the ride was over and the parking photo was submitted.

Cars obviously are the problem here. Had the SUV driver been riding a motorcycle, there is a high probability the scooter rider would be alive. But instead of saying to car drivers, "you are operating the least-forgiving vehicle, therefore you will bear the most burden of responsibility", we say, "ran over a bike because your were texting? Here's a $120 ticket, pay more attention next time."

SUVs generally are more dangerous to the other parties in a collision.

But in this case the scooter rider suffered fatal head injuries because he wasn't wearing a helmet. He would have still suffered fatal head injuries no matter what vehicle hit him since it wasn't the size of the vehicle that mattered here; what mattered was that he fell off his scooter and hit his head.

SUVs are more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists (and scooter riders) than sedans. If you are using a tool that endangers everyone around you then you bear partial responsibility for increasing the latent risk of transportation even if you’re not the proximate cause of a given accident.

True, but in this case the scooter rider would have died whatever vehicle hit him--truck, SUV, sedan, or motorcycle.

Where do you draw the line between individual responsibility and what businesses should shoulder as far as above and beyond safety measures?

I don't necessarily have an answer, but saying scooter companies are responsible for someone's death in the same comment as you mention an illegal uturn seems contradictory to me.

That second part was a separate paragraph because it was a separate response to a different part of the comment I was responding to. It wasn't directly related to my comments on the responsibility of the scooter rider.

Imagine being gaslighted by the gun industry so hard you think that neither cars, nor scooters kill people. People kill people.