Cars rarely park in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of your entrance door, in the middle of the bicycle lane. Cars are also rarely driven by 10-15 years old who have no respect for others.

Both are a pain but cars are much more regulated. Parking a car on the sidewalk or in front of a door of any major city -> you're towed in the next 30 min. Park 5+ escooters in the middle of a busy sidewalk and you'll have to wait until someone decides to throw them away, nobody will get fines, nobody will lose his vehicle for XX hours, &c.

People who use vehicles they don't own are extra reckless and less careful about what they do and where they park, it reveals how many people actually don't give a single fuck about living in organised communities and have absolutely no regards for their neighbours

E scooters would be a dream if every Nth car parking spot was reserved for them and people were forced to park on these spots. You could even have them part of the city transportation subscription that way you wouldn't give money to tax dodging US companies.

Cars do park in the middle of the sidewalk, we just call those things parking lots and cede them entirely to cars. I agree that scooters are aggravating but with cars we've already just lost.

Now you are just redefining words as it suits you.

That is reserved for children.

>this thing is bad, so here's another bad thing.

about as useful as "Taxes? Wait until you hear about death."

there can be many bad things at one time, this doesn't mean we can't discuss the smaller problems, too.

I do not think the message is "here's another bad thing".

It is underlining that lots of people are focusing on conflicts between scooters, bikes and pedestrian have to use walkable areas and fringe of streets/roads for moving and parking.

But overlooking that probably 90% of the space is dedicated to cars (driving and parking) and that is not up for debate.

They should be banned from city centres. I'm so glad I at least live somewhere that limits them to fairly low speeds and bans people from dumping them on the public street taking up space.

Agree. Cars are a menace to society

Really? Don't remember last time i saw a car doing 20-25mph on a 4ft wide pavement. I saw it twice this morning with scooters

I don’t get the point you are trying to make here.

Drivers operating cars 100% legally are a bigger threat to pedestrians than reckless scooter users.

Are we replacing drivers though, or just adding a new threat to our streets on top of existing ones.

Here in London at least, scooter journeys are mostly impractical by private car due to lack of parking. Logically they are replacing bus journeys, walking, taxis and cycling.

the point is that there is an emerging new threat.

aside : i'd like to see this world of yours where cars are operated 100% legally -- even very responsible drivers tend to violate some road laws on a fairly common basis.

They meant a fictional %100 legal operation of cars is still more dangerous than scooters

Consider why the pavement is only 4ft wide.

Some of the roads where i live are over 2000 years old. Was it because society used vehicles to build their civilisation and to move goods and provide services at lower latency?

If scooter users stayed on roads i wouldn't have a problem. But the technology lends itself to abuse by people with no knowledge of safe road use.

Because London is a 2000 year old city?

It’s the huge amount of space given to cars. Or did those exists 2000 years ago also?

Walking on a roads was a thing (and still is in some places). Tokyo, for example.

The place I'm in right now is supposedly a modern development but the sidewalks are in such disrepair / built over / covered in debris that everyone just walks in the road with the traffic.

It’s been rebuilt many times since then, even discounting the bombing of World War Two which destroyed roughly 2 million homes (of approx 5 million at the time in London).

The great fire of London literally reduced the city by so much that practically the entire city was rebuilt; that was only 350y ago (not making the case that you’re wrong about it being old, but 2,000 years is unfortunately wrong)

Anyway, urban design is not set in stone.

It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Los Angeles as an example of a city that already exists being radically changed, entire blocks of buildings were demolished to make downtown roads so wide.

> It’s interesting to look at the evolution of Los Angeles as an example of a city that already exists being radically changed, entire blocks of buildings were demolished to make downtown roads so wide

I'm not sure giving LA, one of the poster cities for how not to do urban design, as an example, is a great idea.

Paris did the same thing, only in a much more measured fashion, in the 1760s under Haussmann and Napoléon III.

However destroying parts of a city which is thousands of years old just to increase the size of sidewalks would be to destroy historical monuments for minimal gains. If anything, making most small streets pedestrian and bike only sounds smarter.

Wasn’t making the point that it was good but saying that urban design is locked in to “history” is the most common argument against good cycling infrastructure.

(and i was trying to correct the notion that the city of london has not had radical changes in its urban design for 2000 years)

And funnily Paris is re-configuring the city for active travel right now!

20-25mph is an exaggeration at best. Otherwise, check out r/IdiotsInCars.

People operating electric scooters recklessly do not get a pass because some people drive their cars like idiots.

In my experience it is the majority of users here in London. They feel like quasi pedestrians so they run lights, use pavements and operate without a driving license (as required by law). Given at the moment there are so few of them relatively speaking the coming epidemic of scooters will be a disaster for pedestrians

I'm not saying they get a pass, I'm saying that if you're also not outraged at the way cars are operated you've got a double standard. It's very trendy to hate on scooters.

> 20-25mph is an exaggeration at best.

No. It is not. I even had work colleagues modifying their scooters firmware to do up to or over 30mph

This is illegal in the UK. You cannot legally drive a privately owned scooter in public. They are classed as vehicles and you need to be insured to drive them, you cannot insure a private scooter. When you rent a scooter from one of the apps they come with insurance built in.

Your colleague, and others, breaking the law and driving dangerously does not mean we should get rid of a means of transportation that is legally and safely used by others.

That looks like a recipe for broken bones.

You’d think that would stop them but you’ve only got to see Barcelona’s motorcycle injury rates or Bangkok’s vehicle death rates to see that isn’t the case.

In Berlin, this morning: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/car-driven-int...

What does this have to do with the topic of discussion?