Banning e-scooters wholesale rather than figuring out how they can be part of a safe mobility culture is like banning combustion vehicles at the onset of the invention of cars.
I will agree though that safer electric PEV like e-bike or e-tricycle are likely safer, as are those with speed governors, and add in dedicated protected lanes.
Speaking of.. the Amish use scooters fairly extensively, but not typical scooters. Their scooters have very large tires by scooter standards; tires meant for children's bicycles. I think these would be much safer than typical small-tired scooters.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=amish+scooter&iax=images&ia...
I got the thing because I loved e-scooters so much but I felt like buying an e-scooter was an unacceptable action given how much it would increase my probability of lifechanging injury or death. But ultimately I found myself stopping using it.
Plenty of cities did just that, after a rash of pedestrian (and equestrian) deaths. What resulted was a multi-decade lobbying effort that redefined the "street" to mean a thoroughfare for combustion vehicles.
Plenty of cities are now walking back that effort and are once again banning combustion vehicles in their cores, or at least are not dedicating the space entirely to cars and trucks. A ho-hum example is Kaiserslautern, Germany, where you can drive in the city core, but it's just much more efficient to park in a lot outside the core and walk.
In the process of typing this comment, I discovered that I agree with your overall point, but I would suggest ditching the "protected lane" part and simply take away the dedicated space for cars.
2. Agreed. Crazy to me that people ride these without helmets. There's also foldable helmets for people annoyed by the size of regular ones. Protected bike lanes also improve this.
That said, banning scooters is a step backward.
You sure? Applying brakes to someone rolling downhill can make them fall because their body is still in motion, and now the scooter isn't moving at the same speed, and they were not prepared for it.
It might be possible to find a hill steep enough to overcome the braking force, or one that results in a strong enough braking force to make the scooter difficult to control, but it should be obvious to most people that attempting such a thing is dangerous.
I might do it anyway to save my life, but it would definitely be a deterrent.
Also heads come in sizes, so a single helmet would not really work - you'd need "helmet stands" where you could get one that fits, and that give them a disinfectant spray between customers (likes shoes in a bowling alley).
Maybe Amazon style lockers?
(Disclaimer: Just an idea.not sure how practical it would be)
A scarf style thing is hopefully not as gross to share as a helmet.
To be honest, I think helmets are good, but a mandate has its own issues. I think usually the culprit is extremely bad infrastructure for not-cars; few places have bike lanes which are safe and comfortable to use and in good condition. Or bike racks which might be a logical place to otherwise put scooters. Sidewalks are usually not a good substitute, and even where they exist often they may not be ADA compliant in terms of ramps or width, they are bumpy due to tree roots etc. displacing the sidewalk panels from their original position and creating unsafe bumps, etc.
Two issues:
You have to bring your own, which is a relatively large thing you have to remember to bring and store. Either people forget them, or can't be bothered... because the whole point of the scooters is ad hoc transportation if needed when it isn't expected.
You get one provided (on the larger ones that include them), but now you have a singular helmet which may have just been used by a sweaty gross human. And it just got put away into a sealed box.
The only thing I can think of to alleviate both of those fears (and still allow Scooter sized things to exist..) would be some sort of helmet vending machine with a 'used helmet' return box. It'd require way more helmets and some sort of cleaning mechanism, but at least that would solve or alleviate the two main concerns. It does immediately mean you now need scooters in close proximity to vending machines though...
For people to actually carry one, it would probably need to pack up to the size of a tote umbrella.
2. How is cleanliness handled? Maybe I’m an outlier for sweat, but I don’t think many people would be ok with wearing my used helmet.
However, there are a few issues with helmets, one of which is that a lot of people think it's gross if they have to use a helmet someone else just used, especially in a city where you're bound to sweat profusely when outside no matter what time of the year it is. Imagine putting on a helmet that's covered with the sweat of 2 or 3 people that have also rode the scooter in the last 2 or 3 hours? Yuck!
Requiring helmets is a great idea - but a crux of the issue is that people will ignore requirements as much as they possibly can and will try to spoof the requirement every chance they get. There's a moped company in town called Revel that operates a bunch of moped rentals similar to scooters. They require all riders to wear the provided helmet, and even financially incentivize other users to report people riding without helmets. That hasn't solved anything, and I see people riding those things without helmets on multiple times every single day.
Bicycles aren't unsafe in themselves, see lots of cities where cycling is a very common and safe mode of transportation. Scooters on the other hand are indeed a lot less safe due to their small wheels, short wheelbase and awkward stance of the rider. That said, it's the urban planning that makes cycling unsafe in many places, not the device itself.
Bicycles with helmets are fairly safe. Without helmets? No way, I'm not riding without a helmet. But scooters without helmets are much worse, I wouldn't dare go much more than 10mph on a scooter without a helmet.
It's entirely possible to ride a bike in a way that actually doesn't require a helmet. It's VERY boring :-P , but nevertheless practical and doable.
I've fallen a few other times besides those two, but those are the worst two and I think without a helmet I would have been seriously injured if not dead.
I think it's all relative to how much you're approaching it as "road cycling" vs "urban commuting". If you keep the seat high, lean forward, and pedal near your limits, you definitely need protection even if the road is empty. But if you're going at a pace and a posture that lets you stomp your foot down easily, the dangers come down to total loss of control(e.g. downhill, failing brakes) and unpredictable traffic.
The biggest danger with electric mobility going forward lies in blurring of the distinctions. When they're brought up to highway speeds, what you have is an underbuilt motorcycle with no safety features or licensing requirements.
(Why am I using >50 km/h as the benchmark? Because that's the sort of speeds you easily end up at if you try to keep up with cars downhill.)
----
Edit: it seems that people are missing critical words in my comment:
- "Ordinary upright/city bike" means "not road/touring/etc bikes". They are constructed differently and comfortably do well over 50 km/h.
- "Downhill" means significant gravity assistance for a few seconds up to a minute, and not "sustained under pedaling power alone". I'd be impressed if you regularly did 50 km/h on the flats with one of those bicycles.
Not many people will do >50kmh even downhill (even with disk brakes), and on the few occasions I've done so, I absolutely would not say there are "significant controllability problems". In fact, quite the opposite.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN6Z8UgVOuw Nb - these were shot in the days before the 'supertuck' (sitting on the crossbar) was banned.
Who on earth is using ordinary city bikes at 50km/h near cars? Even class II e-bikes are limited to 20mph/32kph.
Class III are limited to 28mph/45kph but are forbidden from bike paths.
[edit] 50kph under your own power is the average speed at the Tour de France.
My bike was quite stable at 40mph.
No I wouldn't go that fast on a bike path, this was only due to the power of gravity.
Now, I fully agree with the spirit of your post. Even the spots I'm talking about are short bursts.
There is one company I'm aware of that at least operates here in Canada called Neuron, which has helmets attached to every rental scooter. You're told by the app to put it on.
I'm buying my own e-scooter for when the snow clears. And a helmet.
A few months ago I saw a man in Seattle die while riding an electric scooter on a street going down a hill. He was going way too fast, probably trying to keep up with the cars I think, started wobbling, fell, and bounced his head off the street. Dead on impact. Two points:
1. These scooters are not stable enough to operate at road speed safely. The wheels are too small for it, the dynamics of controlling one at speed are all fucked up. They are substantially less safe than even bicycles.
2. Rental scooters don't come with rental helmets. I think a helmet would have saved his life. But the whole supposed convenience of the scooter rental scheme assumes no helmets, since virtually nobody leaves home in the morning carrying a helmet on the off chance they may want to rent a scooter.