I'm of two minds regarding e-scooters: on one hand they are undeniably practical and I use them a lot, on the other hand many users obviously have zero experience using them or similar vehicles, so put themselves and others into dangerous situations, and many of them are parked on sidewalks so they are annoyingly in the way.

But, besides all that, I think this is a "First they came for the e-scooters" situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...). Most people don't care about e-scooters because they don't use them. I wonder how a vote to ban bicycles woult turn out - most people don't ride bicycles either?

It's a shame they are being banned in many places, because they are such a great idea. It's the equivalent to a taxi, but a small fraction of the price. It's such a great utility to be able to pick one up and go directly to your destination. All the advantages of having a bike, but without most of the downsides.

People just needed to be somewhat polite and disciplined - too many ride fast on sidewalks, leave them in bad places, etc.

As often happens, something nice is ruined by a small fraction of people.

People are the reason we can't have nice things. Or maybe is is the free floating idea. I remember in Brisbane and Helsinki there were fixed stations to borrow and return bikes to/from. But it seems this tiny limitation of convenience (can't drop it wherever) breaks the concept.

Free floating is a mess. Living in China the bikes were everywhere. Masses piled outside every metro stop. In Taiwan/Taipei the system has bike docks at every metro and many other places as well. There's an app that tells you how many bikes are at each location and how many spots are left to park in. Getting a bike uses the same card as the bus, metro and train. Really easy and convenient and more orderly.

Not sure how well it would work in some places due to vandalism and such.

Some places have fixed stations downtown, and free floating outside the city core. I find that compromise works pretty well, you get to drive all the way home and park outside your house where there is room, but you don't have thousands of them all over the place downtown.

> because they are such a great idea

I'd prefer a tight mesh of public transport with a flatrate ticket system over any fancy mobility startup at any time.

as someone who lives in a city with (imho) one of the best public transport systems, i still like to use scooters for travels where public transport either can't provide an easy way to get to the destination and/or the wait times are longer than the travel itself. usually, i just use my bike, but there are still situations where an e-scooter is just an insanely practical choice.

What exactly are the downsides of owning a bike that you don't have owning a e-scooter?

I'm more comparing own vs rent. Rental e-bikes are great as well, 90% as good as the scooters. Disadvantages of keeping your own:

1) Need to take it with you on the train/bus/car

2) Need to lock it to something secure when you leave it (especially e-bikes/scooters which are expensive)

3) Need to pick it up from the same place you left it last time.

4) Need to buy it (€1000+) and maintain it, and charge it

5) Need to store it somewhere secure when not in use

6) The parking scales really poorly: if 10 people can use a hire-bike in a day, but 1 person can use a private one, this would mean the private bikes would take 10x the amount of parking per user.

Ah, but then the same applies for rented bikes too? Plenty of cities have those, nothing actually specific to e-scooters.

You can't take a bike easily into: a car, the subway, your flat, a shop, ...

It could also be the same reasoning as a car regarding the space: a bike for 1 person takes more space than an e-scooter for 1 person.

The real problem is not the device: it's the users. People using bikes also do stupid things, but not that often. Bikes can be very fast too, with electric assist they can go faster than cars in the city, but most "problems" seen today are with the scooters. This is a sad situation, but it's some users' fault, not the operators', not the city's, ...

One way to deal with this would be to have a license to drive a scooter or bike, so that kids (and adults) are taught some basic rules and have to follow them. But I guess this is politically hard to implement, it's easier to ban.

I dont think these apply to share e-scooters as much. The ban is about shared e-scooter.

> You can't take a bike easily into: a car, the subway, your flat, a shop, ...

Those places are getting more restrictive though. Some shops don't allow you to park anything inside the shop because it takes up space, some subways are banning e-scooters citing safety issues regarding not having equipment ready for dealing with large battery fires and so on.

Besides, there are foldable bikes that can take up as much space as a foldable e-scooter.

Firstly you need somewhere to keep the bike, inside is great but outside space can work, though you are at risk of having it stolen.

The main advantage is having it where you need it - maybe you got the metro or the bus to work and now you want to go on somewhere else. Your bike is at home. Then you want to head to a friends house, but there is nowhere safe to leave your bike but you'd be happy to leave the rental scooter outside, then two other friends want to join you on a trip to a pub, this time you have your bike but they don't, so you cycle alone and they get a cab.

I love cycling, but scooters (rental and private) def have some advantages

But those same arguments can be made for rentable bikes? Nothing unique with e-scooters in particular.

No you are right and I agree many of the benefits overlap - but I know far more people in London that have tried the scooters compared to people that have tried the various hire bikes, plus know more regular scooter hirer'ers than regular bike hires. But that is just my anecdote - sure it could be wrong

The vote concerns rentable scooters, not private ones.

Space if you live in a very small apartment and don't have a garage. Also probably easier to take with you on public transports.

Your bike gets stolen.

You can't cover partial routes with your bike and combine with other forms of transport.

Your bike requires phisical effort which might require a shower on destination.

If there's a transport strike, or it's too late for transport, rental vehicles that function 24hs save you

The close minded and privileged outlook of "just own a car/bike/get picked by someone" shows a disconnect with the reality of many people.

You're comparing owned bike vs rented e-scooter. Try comparing rented bike with rented e-scooter or owned bike with owned e-scooter and you'll see that there isn't such a stark difference.

Not sure why you call me close minded, I never mentioned any of those "alternatives" you mention. I walk to most places I go to, as I currently live in a walkable metropolitan city in Europe.

I'm doing exactly what you asked.

> What exactly are the downsides of owning a bike that you don't have owning a e-scooter?

You said OWNING a bike. Now you suddenly seem to talk about rented bikes.

The argument around "rented vehicle being left anywhere" can be made for bikes. If you only argue for bikes that can be left at a station, then it's definitely worse than e-scooters. If the bike can be locked like e-scooters, without the need of an exciting station, then people will end up complaining just as much and ban them with the same reasoning.

> Not sure why you call me close minded, I never mentioned any of those "alternatives" you mention. I walk to most places I go to, as I currently live in a walkable metropolitan city in Europe.

Lol. How much and how long do you actually walk? I live in a metropolitan city in europe too (and have lived in multiple ones and travelled to many) and it can be called walkable, using the ridiculous US standards.

I love hiking and will walk long distances or, when I actually have a bike, bike longer but it's not practical in your day to day, to walk more than 2k, if you're pressed for time.

Also, if you're leaving a place in one end of the city at 2 am, when public transport options thin out, you're not going to walk 20/30km.

It's very easy to live in a well connected place and move very little and claim "I walk everywhere". It's also very selfish and lacks empathy with other realities.

But hey, it's an uphill battle to discuss things that affect real people in HN where it's all about "I'm sorted" and "The narrative says this is correct".

- slow

- requires more energy to travel longer distances.

- less theft prevention features.

Just a precision, (private) e-scooters are still allowed.

The vote was on renewing or not the contracts of free floating solutions like Tier, Lime, etc

This is quite important. While e-scooters are very eco-friendly, in hands of large rending companies they usually have extremely limited lifespan and are not fullfulling this place.

> This is quite important.

I'd go a step beyond and claim that e-bike sharing services like Lime are extremely detrimental to an urban space while adding nothing to mobility and sustainability. They are mainly gimmicks used to litter urban spaces whose only purpose is to serve as a kind of coin-operated joyrides. These operators come in and dump truckloads of things onto the public space, scatter them around, and pretend that this is ok.

This ban has nothing to do with e-whatever, environment, mobility, or even economy. It's getting rid of an abusive practice that was a net loss for everyone involved.

Here in Romania, THE CARS litter the urban spaces. There are cars parked everywhere: on the sidewalks, on the side of the road in parallel with those on the sidewalks, in bus stops, on all the green spaces, on no-access markings of the roads, etc. I wish people would use more e-scooters & e-bikes. 8-10 rental e-scooters fit in the same sidewalk space a car would occupy and a car can't be moved if the owner isn't there.

> Here in Romania, THE CARS litter the urban spaces.

Cars are indeed a cancer on all urban spaces, and one which has been granted too much privileges for decades.

The Netherlands' Jokinen Plan[1] is widely used as the epitome of idiocy that we get by designing cities around cars.

But the fact is that services provided by multinationals like Lime do nothing to address this issue. People do not drop their cars for ebikes just because a multinational dropped one on the sidewalk.

Also, it's a red herring to portray services provided by multinationals like Lime as synonyms for replacing cars with alternatives. They do nothing of the sort, and it misrepresents the problem. Companies like Lime scatter crap around cities with impunity and expect the public to just suck it up. Any small business owner who did a fraction of the abusive practices of occupying the public space would be fined into bankruptcy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokinen_Plan

> People do not drop their cars for ebikes just because a multinational dropped one on the sidewalk.

I own a car. About 2 years ago I bought a an escooter and since then I almost never used the car, even in winter (with snow and below 0°C cold).

I was hoping that car users would at least try a rental ebike/escooter, see how easy it is to ride anywhere, park anywhere, and then buy and start using their own.

It didn't happen. It seems there is some very important reason they prefer cars, despite how much it costs and how difficult it is to find a parking spot. I really don't know what that reason is. Someone please enlighten me!

> While e-scooters are very eco-friendly

Are they, though?

Anecdata, but the vast majority of people I see using using escooters in Australian cities are kids and drunk people.

It’s not hard to see either: they’re bright orange or purple, and are usually seen on a Saturday or Sunday morning dumped thoughtlessly in disabled ramps, in a gutter, or some other place that a drunk might find convenient.

Private ownership would clear this up. (not legal in NSW).

If you paid 600$ for one I don't expect you'd leave it in a gutter.

I'm almost 50 and I'd love to legally write an electric skateboard. I'd use it in most places. Now I just take the car, because it's the only way I can travel at speed with my dog.

Funnily enough we have the exact opposite in the UK. Private scooters banned, rental scooters laying all over the pavement.

Yep. Same in most of Australia.

I wish privates were legal and rentals were gone.

> Funnily enough we have the exact opposite in the UK. Private scooters banned, rental scooters laying all over the pavement.

What's the rationale behind this nonsense?

I would start guessing with the obvious: money.

The official reason is insurance, and ensuring a small trial area.

Basically, in UK law, the scooters count as motor vehicles, and therefore must have a licence, which they can't for other reasons. So, they're illegal to ride on the pavement because they're motorised, and they're illegal to ride on the road because they're uninsured and unlicensed. There are a few trial areas where companies are providing insured scooters for hire under a recognised scheme, which is what makes them legal.

This is the same reason why electric bicycles in the UK must only apply power to assist you as you pedal - they must detect when you pedal, and act as power-assisted pedalling. It's illegal to have an electric bike that gives power when you're not pedalling, because that would count as an unlicensed uninsured motor vehicle.

It's a quirk of the way that classes of vehicle are defined in UK law, and I'd rather they just sorted it out.

> So, they're illegal to ride on the pavement because they're motorised, and they're illegal to ride on the road because they're uninsured and unlicensed.

It sounds like these issues are artificial legal constructs caused by the law lagging behind where technology js, and it would be trivial to fix them.

For instance, I'm sure insurance companies would be eager to offer escooter insurance.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35415305

Comments moved thither. Thanks!

Great, lets now move to ban them from other EU capitals. Its an issue in Berlin, so many youths ride these scooters recklessly on footpaths, hurting pedestrians or worse.

'E-scooters have safety risks, let's encourage people back into 2-ton fossil-fuel-burning cars instead!'

If we want a future of EVs, we need to figure out how to include personal light EVs, not just very expensive full-size-car replacements for the wealthy.

In Paris and Berlin the alternatives are probably bikes, metro, or walking...

The 'Bicycles are fine but e-scooters are awful' argument comes up a lot, but doesn't make much sense.

The big question on whether e-scooters are great or awful really depends on what they're replacing. Bikes? Then they're awful. But cars? Then they're fantastic. But which is it?

In Amsterdam, my impression is that fat-tired e-bikes have become the standard replacement for mopeds, which I think is an improvement.

My read of the article is that it’s only about rental scooters. Personal scooters aren’t covered, and remain allowed.

This is good.

In the UK, personal scooters are still illegal, and the problems with rental schemes seem to be being used to keep it that way :(

So sad that metro workers go on strike so frequently.

> 'E-scooters have safety risks, let's encourage people back into 2-ton fossil-fuel-burning cars instead!'

You somehow believe that the only options on the table for personal transport is either "2-ton fossil-fuel-burning cars" or the miraculous selfless service sold by a couple of multinationals.

It must be hard to intentionally ignore all the public transportation services in all shapes and forms, like railway, bus services, metro, trams, ride share, and even municipal bike sharing services,

and also ignore other personal transportation modes such as motorcycles, bikes and personal scooters

and also ignore e-car sharing services

and also ignore ride share services like taxicabs and etrikes.

For you, the only choice is either a gas-guzzler or the glorious service provided by a multinational.

Most scooter-haters don't differentiate between personally owned scooters and rental scooters, and personally-owned scooters (likely to be better maintained, more sensibly driven, and not abandoned in the street) will get caught up in the bans.

> Most scooter-haters

Please don't.

There is no such thing as "scooter haters".

Companies like Lime are criticised for their abusive and antisocial business practices of dumping crap on the public space without any concern, criteria or care, and pretend everyone around them to just suck up the externalities to validate their business model.

No one cares if you ride your whatever on roads or bike lanes. People care when you dump your crap all over the place and get them in the way of everything. You'd hear the exact same complains if instead of escooters you dumped washing machines.

Grind that axe in another thread.

Youths in Berlin are NOT riding 2-ton cars. The minimum age for unrestricted licenses in Germany is 18.

"e-scooters" produce an ungodly amount of battery waste.

Nothing compared to what a world of full-size EVs will produce when they start piling up on scrapheaps in more significant numbers. (Ideally we need recycling solutions for both)

But moving people around on 20kg electric scooters has got to be a lot more efficient than doing it in 2000kg electric cars.

I think private ones are still relevant, as they’re less likely to recklessly endanger their investment.

In Australia at least, the police can and do fine people using them where they shouldn’t, and at speeds that they shouldn’t [1].

[1]https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-23/man-caught-riding-e-s...

Better bike paths, and personal ownership.

I wonder.. count the number of pedestrians hurt, vs the number of car deaths. I'll take the broken arm over massive internal damage.

I suspect if you were given a choice: Get hit by a car doing 40, or a scooter doing 40, you'd pick the scooter.

So they make a referendum for this but they force on them changes on retirement age. Illusion of democracy.

103,000 people voted out of 1.38M registered voters.

Democracy sucks if no one is exercising their democratic minimum duty; to vote. This will lead to smaller groups being able to mobilise easier for their agenda. Also happens one level up in Germany or Australia - lack of volunteers for judiciary committee or duties opens the door for right wing or other nutters that are organised and push into these openings.

I was quite surprised by the strength of opinion on this one, but now I see the numbers it makes more sense. Those that hated the public scooters turned out, but nobody loved them enough to turn out and vote in support.

As they say, History is made by those that turn up (or somesuch).

Sounds similar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35415305

European cities are clamping down on shared scooters quite a bit, but in different ways. Vienna for instance is now asking for a lot more geo fencing, if there is a specific drop-off location within 100 meters a ride cannot be ended unless it's parked on such a drop-off location. Companies are also forced to report scooter locations in real-time to the city government for monitoring and enforce speed restrictions based on map data.

I'm super curious if this will end the availability of the scooters as the cost of this is probably quite a bit higher now.

Even around the small towns here I've had more than a few instances of black-wearing people flying between cars at night on these things. Your only defense is to have a dash cam to defend yourself when the inevitable happens I guess.

Living in a major city which also has a buzz about banning scooters and scooters being banned in some more posh neighborhoods already, I have problem with this.

The problem is obviously not the existence of scooters but how people would pile them up or ride them carelessly on sidewalks. IMHO, the solution would be to create infrastructure and usage rules. Seize the scooters from those who do not comply. Eventually, either the scooters would stop causing problems or they will no longer exist.

The issue is that the Lime-like business model of scattering around e-scooters is fundamentally broken. They don't operate between pickup/dropoff spots nor can that be enforced. They intentionally expect these scooters to be dropped off in random places by riders. It's economically unfeasible to have employees constantly move around cities to gather them, and they'd have to license and pay for the occupation of public space to have dedicated dropoff/pickup spots.

The only shot at profitability of e-scooter sharing services depends on their ability to abuse public space without cost and dump all externalities on the communities they operate.

The whole argument about "they clog the streets" and annoy me is absolutely contrary to the actual incentives to cheaper and more ecological transport.

It's a very NIMBY type of thinking.

Hey, Citizen, if you don't have the means to buy, store and charge your own and occasionally would need one to deal with the craziness and unreliability of public transport, we are going to make it harder on you.

Many countries in Europe keep punishing people who don't own cars or other vehicles while pretending they care about the environment. They do the same with bikes or e-bikes.

See also the insane cost of train tickets Vs flights.

If govs were honest about the environment they would create incentives (positive, not punitive) to foment good forms of transport with good quality of life.

Instead, it's a very classist system.

HN will probably not get this due to the demo that either owns cars in the US or is on a more privileged class in Europe and likely also owns vehicles and property.

> The whole argument about "they clog the streets" and annoy me is absolutely contrary to the actual incentives to cheaper and more ecological transport.

Bullshit. These e-scooter sharing services operate on cities already covered by all sorts of public transportation services, including municipal e-bike services.

The key difference is that municipal services address and avoid the problem of abusive occupation of public space by employing networks of pickup/dropoff spots.

> Hey, Citizen, if you don't have the means to buy, store and charge your own and occasionally would need one to deal with the craziness and unreliability of public transport, we are going to make it harder on you.

Bullshit. These escooter sharing services operate in cities where public transportation is highly subsidized and monthly fees are mostly symbolic, with some cities being even totally free.

Also, a cursory search for escooters shows that there are scooters in the market for 120kg/13km autonomy for less than 300€, and they can be charged by simply plugging them onto any regular electrical socket.

> Many countries in Europe keep punishing people who don't own cars or other vehicles while pretending they care about the environment. They do the same with bikes or e-bikes.

You have zero insight or basis on reality to support any of your personal assertions. You've managed to be entirely wrong in each and any assertion you made.

> Bullshit. These e-scooter sharing services operate on cities already covered by all sorts of public transportation services, including municipal e-bike services.

Bullshit. Specially at night.

> The key difference is that municipal services address and avoid the problem of abusive occupation of public space by employing networks of pickup/dropoff spots

Bingo! Thanks for making the point for me. You want to ban e-bikes/bikes that can be left freely like e scooters can. It's not the scooters but the parking that bothers you and though you pretend to be for bikes you aren't. NIMBY and disingenuous and I'm done with pretending you're anything but.

These stations won't feature in less affluent neighbourhoods, these stations won't be as many, these stations won't be as convenient. You're screwing the usefulness because YOU don't use it.

> Bullshit. These escooter sharing services operate in cities where public transportation is highly subsidized and monthly fees are mostly symbolic, with some cities being even totally free

Bullshit generalization. Paris isn't like that. London isn't like that. Madrid isn't like that. Dublin (which has no e scooter rental but does bike rental) isn't like that.

Every thing you say exposes you further.

> Also, a cursory search for escooters shows that there are scooters in the market for 120kg/13km autonomy for less than 300€, and they can be charged by simply plugging them onto any regular electrical socket.

Which a) implies you have a place to store it (privileged NIMBY) and b) implies it covers the same need of being somewhere and renting it on the spot (such as at night after an event, where you couldn't take a scooter or bike and leave it there).

> You have zero insight or basis on reality to support any of your personal assertions. You've managed to be entirely wrong in each and any assertion you made.

I've actually supported with specifics what I said while you have been a rude disingenuous actor who uses political generalizations.

You're a great example of what I talk about. HN always pretended to be polite and encourage discourse but when someone from reality came in an exposed a narrative, morally corrupt people like you would come down with the entitled arrogance and rudeness that can only be gained of not having to face reality.

> e-bikes/bikes that can be left freely

That's the whole point: they can't.

You cannot dump your crap on the street and expect that to be ok.

If you can't just park your car on any random sidewalk or dump your bike in the middle of the street, what leads you believe that it's ok for a multinational to dump their crap all over a city?

Construction companies have to file for permits and pay all kinds of fees to temporarily park a trash bin on the sidewalk. People have to pay fees to get the trash company to take care of furniture you want to throw out, and you still can't just leave it on the sidewalk. What leads you to believe that it's ok to dump all sorts of crap on a sidewalk, specially when they are mainly used for joyrides?

Meanwhile, there are countless solutions for personal mobility that have been around for ages. Hell, is a bicycle an alien concept? Let's not fool ourselves into believing that a multinational's abusive business model is the only way anyone can move from point A to B.

This rant is is very off base.

European countries are in aggregate extremely pro bike/pedestrian.

The scooter issue is particularly in focus, because in big cities the competition to become the main player has created a ton of competing companies trying to place their scooters all over the place. I don't mind it myself - I use them in the summer. But I have had to literally step over, or move around a pile of scooters on more than one occasion.

My rant is really ON base but it reflects a demographic very different from the one in HN and will get downvoted as always when something goes against a narrative. It's very easy to parrot the typical points.

> European countries are in aggregate extremely pro bike/pedestrian

Lol. This is just an ignorant talking point from someone who compares everything to the US. It's like saying healthcare is good (and generalizing as if every country in Europe belonged to a monolith) just because healthcare in the US sucks.

The reality is that having options like these empowers people who don't belong to the tier that owns cars and has sheds or places to store their e-vehicles.

In many cities, these non car options keep getting worse and more expensive and everything seems geared to those who have more money and privilege and people just have to 'take it'.

But hell, let's call it a rant, simplify the issue and outright ban stuff so that people who don't benefit from something can feel more comfortable.

With that logic, Let's ban motorcycles. I don't like their noise and don't have one. They're definitely unsafe and cause accidents. Oh, but we're not going to that.

So there's bad etiquette around scooter placement and you ban it. The same thing can happen with free parking e-bikes. Why can't you find a solution that doesn't ban e-scooters?

You just admitted use them "on occasion" so they're not really useful to you, so you're fine with removing them from others that actually might take advantage.

It's the thing I keep pointing out. People from certain positions screwing over others because they're inconvenienced instead of requesting the gov to do better if they want better order or something.

It's all rather classist but it happens with everything.

Lesson for people: have more money, have cars, live in suburbs, have spaces where you can store your vehicles. Or get screwed by decreasing quality of public transport.

I really don't understand why you blame the government. They (the people) VOTED! What did you expect gov't to do? Ignore the vote?