Anecdote: I'm not far from Paris, I was walking around a corner, dude on the footpath on a escooter runs right into me, luckily I am 188cm/100 kilos and he pretty much bounced off me, but a kid might have been less fortunate.

Paris is nice to cycle, cars can't typically go fast enough to be too much of a hinderance, better for bikes will be good tho, the bike lanes need some work

Funny you bring up cycling. In sf its the bikes when im walking that seem to be the most dangerous. The scooters dont go fast enough

Bicycles are dangerous in the US because there isn’t a bicycling culture: The bicyclists (that I’ve seen) treat it as a sport, and the cars don’t navigate around them as if the bicyclists are suicidal, which is the safe assumption to make when you come from a bike-heavy European capital.

I can't tell you why honestly. I just know that my near misses have always been with bicycles. For some reason people on bikes think it's acceptable to not slow down when a pedestrian is crossing the street and it's acceptable to just blast past them within a half inch of hitting them.

Survivorship bias? If it were a car you wouldn't be around to tell the tale.

Surely the issue is the scooter on the pavement, not the fact that scooters are allowed.

I'm sure they would've died if they got run over by a train or a plane too, but unlike either of these scooters are actually common on pavement.

Thus the second paragraph

> not the fact that scooters are allowed.

If you read my comment, you will notice I didn't say anything about this.

No, but the article is about banning them.

partially, rented escooters, not owned, so some percentage

I can only find data up to 2021, but in urban environments in France that year, 165 pedestrians were killed in crashes involving a passenger vehicle. 2 were killed in crashes involving "Personal Mobility Devices (motorized)".

Source on page 79 - https://www.onisr.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/sites/default/fi...

(Meanwhile, 190 pedestrians were killed in just my state of Illinois in 2022)

Ah yes, this will certainly help our crusade of fighting climate change by banning internal combustion.

Since it will make bicycle rides safer, ye.

Banning cars would do the same though, even more so.

The issue is one of appropriate spaces, if we actually had decent cycle lanes then I don't think we'd see this issue.

We would see this issue because Paris is also restricting car traffic.

https://slate.com/business/2023/03/paris-car-ban-bikes-cycli...

> It’s part of a larger movement—spanning a half-century, two decades, or the mayoral tenure of the Socialist Anne Hidalgo, depending on whom you ask—to expel cars from the heart of the largest metropolitan area in the European Union. Car trips within Paris declined by almost 60 percent between 2001 and 2018, according to research from Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme, the city’s planning arm; between the city and its suburbs, they have fallen by 35 percent. Car crashes have fallen by 30 percent; pollution has fallen too.

> Banning cars would do the same though, even more so.

Don’t worry. They are on their way to do just that, as well.

The E-scooter fleet is replaced by e-bikes.

Good riddance. May it be the first of many.

Who would have guessed that the government, let alone a french one, would be the helping hand stopping those people gullible enough to dump cash on these dumpster fire companies from hurting themselves. It's the hero they needed, not the one they deserved.

I disagree with the ban and how it was voted, but in the end it might be better like this. Paris have a high density, and during the day-evening, with how easy and fast it is to commute there, it's at least twice as much as it's listed. E-scooter are easier and more practical to use than bike, but they are also less stable and the brakes aren't always as good as they should (this is also an issue with shared bikes, just less prevalent).

Might be the average user, but I also see more asocial comportements on E-scooter despite them being less prevalent than bikes everywhere I go.

Still disagree with how it was decided though.

>Still disagree with how it was decided though.

It was through a referendum, with something like 90% votes in favour of banning them:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65154854

Surely it wasn't a popular referendum as only 8% or so actually voted.

Is this the thing you disagree with?

There are two types of people that will vote in such a referendum: those that use electric scooters (vote to allow) and those that are annoyed by them (vote to forbid). The others don't care enough.

If you look at the demographics for people using electric scooters, it contains a lot of: minors, people from the suburbs, train commuters, tourists. None of these were eligible to vote.

On the other hand, people annoyed by the scooters are more likely to be older locals, eligible and motivated to vote.

I think that's fair, because hey, locals should get to choose what happens in their city. But Paris is such an interconnected city that I understand it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of some.

Yes. It was skewed against E-scooter from the beginning. Who use e-scooters?

- Students (middle grade to college): half of those can't legally vote, and the other half wasn't eligible to vote.

- service workers/vendors: most of Paris is too expensive for them, so like 95% wasn't eligible to vote (not counting visa workers not immigrants, else it would be 99%).

- tourists (or 90% remote workers like me) : none are eligible. I think that part is okay actually, even if we bring money to the city, we aren't essential to the city (unlike the first two groups).

The referendum was mostly peddled by mail (physical mail) which target especially older people.

Like I said, I think the ban might not be a bad thing overall, but this was a travesty. I would rather have hidalgo ban the e-scooters without consultation.

Yes, I agree with you, from the little experience I have, these thingies are very often (not in themselves, but due to the way they are driven, everywhere and without respecting any rule) dangerous and a ban might not be a bad thing, but Paris at least made (skewed as it might be) the referendum.

In Florence (Italy) the mayor attempted in 2021 to make the helmet mandatory for e-scooters (besides geofencing and limiting them in some zones to 6 km/h), but it was deemed like an excess of power by the relevant court.

But, starting probably end of 2023, the helmet will be mandatory in all Italy for both private and shared e-scooters (besides other new rules for parking, a license plate, insurance, lights, turn indicators, use of high visibility vest at night).

The renting companies won't have any trouble (besides the costs) to modify the scooters to comply but very likely the need for the helmet will make the whole thing fade away (IMHO).

AFAIK the renting companies (some of which already introduced helmets, on a voluntary basis) have a lot of troubles with stolen or damaged ones.

Besides, I don't think many people will happily put on their heads helmets used by someone else (without proper cleaning/sanitizing) and/or at the first few (not so improbable) cases of lice or similar there will be some new (sanitary) rules implemented, making sanitizing between rents mandatory.

And - even for the private ones - the need for the helmet, registering to get a license plate, adding the lights, etc. and the need for insurance will likely cut down the usage.

Perhaps they should ban cycling since the lady in the article could be knocked down and hurt by a bicycle, I have been hit twice by cyclists. It's kind of ridiculous but I believe this is more about some hidden agenda like scooters taking away Taxi fares, etc. Would they impose the same ban against electric bikes?

Personally, I really enjoy them in Europe. I was walking about 12-15 km a day in most cities a day and there were some areas I wanted to revisit later during my trip, these scooters really made it convenient when I didn't want to walk for an hour or two to get back to a certain location.

Did you ride back to the location on a sidewalk and carrying another person on the scooter? If yes, then fuck you very much and you’re the reason I wish rental scooters would GTFO of Prague (where I live and ride my own e-scooter). If no, then I’m honestly sorry about the majority of absolute cretins taking away a great means of transport.

I am very familiar with Prague and have spent weeks-months there. I have never had an issue with e-scooters. They are practically non-existent in Old Town and didn't really even notice them in Prague 2,3,4. Where do you live in Prague where this is the problem or was this an isolated instance or locals (kids) using them to get around?

Local kids do use them to get around, which is only an issue when they don’t know the traffic rules or when they’re too small (aside from it being against the TOS).

Tourists on Lime scooters riding on sidewalks are a daily (hourly) sight in the center (I go there quite often), especially in the evening. Maybe I’m more sensitive than you, as I said, I’m an escooter rider myself and I care about “our” public image.

From my experience, e-scooters are much more annoying and dangerous than e-bikes. Mostly because e-scooters are anecdotally more likely to be used on the sidewalk, and by more reckless drivers.

I am not entirely sure why that is, but I think it's a combination of the smaller frame and the ease of hopping onto them by simply stepping up that makes them feel more like "enhanced walking" (with an illusion of control) than an actual vehicle.

My feeling is that it would be better to tax them according to the problems they create.

Scooter left on the sidewalk? Charge the operating company with a ticket. So they will charge their customer.

Scooter driving in an illegal manner? Charge the driver and the company.

This way, scooters would be operated in a manner that is good for everybody. They are a very effecive way to get around in a city. Are used much more than personally owned cars and bikes, so less parking time / occupied space. They take up way less space while driving and parking. Make no noise. And emmit no air pollution.

It is similar to banning light bulbs vs introducing a carbon tax. Concrete laws like banning things are more popular. But taxing the problems they create is more effective.

In Copenhagen, scooters can only park in designated areas.

Unfortunately, those areas are so small that you can be stuck with a scooter that is impossible to return, because the GPS tracker doesn’t update fast or precise enough.

And unfortunately, people still dump them on the side of the road if either they go out of their allowed area, or run out of juice.

Considering you can rent a car at a lower rate per minute with less fuss, I think these scooter companies just have a hard time accepting sunk cost.

Yet another business model that doesn't add up if you account for all negative externalities. Do you think the founders of these companies knew that before starting?

The founders went away with a whole bunch of VC money. They knew perfectly well what they were doing, and that was not establishing a sustainable business.

I'm sure there's a whole batch of companies that want to abuse the sidewalks. Robo-pizza delivery bot! Robo-package delivery bot! Mobile-advertising-bot! Paris will be perfectly fine with their world-class metro and world-famous urban environment.

I think the cost of entering is sufficiently low to get convinced that “this time, it will be different”.

There is a YouTuber who collects and dumps them in piles, and it seems like the scooter companies have sufficient anti-theft measures in place to justify that the risk of theft is low.

The chance of being caught would be far too low. Police have better things to do.

You don't punish the individual, you punish the company. Then the company can access logs and pass the cost to the customer that violated the rules.

I think it's too difficult to prove in most cases. Like if somebody is riding one on the sidewalk. I don't think GPS is exact enough to definitively say whether they were on the sidewalk on in the road 6 feet away, especially if there's tall buildings around to interfere with the signal.

OK, let's limit to just scooters being left obstructing traffic of pedestrians/vehicles. A scooter parking violation if you will.

You still have to substantiate the accusation.

The accusation is simple: the scooter is left in a place where it obstructs the passage of other vehicles/pedestrians. Pictures can be taken if need be, of course, but do you as a driver that receives a parking ticket require that the police provide proof that your car was where they said it was, or is it mostly based on trust?

> Charge the operating company with a ticket

I agree, it seems like such a trivial solution to implement that I am baffled that no western city has done it. Laws against blocking pedestrian spaces surely exist already so they only need to be enforced. If car rental companies can designate parking spaces for their cars, surely scooters can too.

> Scooter driving in an illegal manner? Charge the driver and the company.

As someone who frequently has to dart myself and my puppy out of the way of these jerks—almost always on a narrow sidewalk beside a busy arterial—this kind of sounds nice. But I can’t imagine how it would work. Even if I could scramble fast enough to snap a picture while keeping pup safe, would it be actionable?

As it is, on the rare occasion it’s just me out walking I’m content to play chicken with them and try to hold my ground. But I don’t take those chances with pup, and trying to get evidence (however useful) would involve the same risk.

I’m guessing the reason the jerks are driving on the sidewalk is because the roads are unsafe for them. Maybe cars (the vehicles making the roads unsafe) are the real problem?

I hope the US would rebuild streets for people and bikes, not autonomous vehicles.

The majority of Americans are too overweight and unhealthy to travel any meaningful distance by bike.

Yes, and.

Mixing operation of motorized vehicles in the same space with vulnerable humans and their pets is the real problem. Operating them on the sidewalk is an instance of and amplification of the same problem.

I’m wildly sympathetic to the anti-car position, but I’m not at all sympathetic to excusing motor scooters on sidewalks in the interest of advancing that position.

In Japan, many cities don’t even have sidewalks—pedestrians share the same space with cars/bikes/motorcycles. Because everybody understands that it's a shared space, people drive cautiously, resulting in safer streets. Sometimes separation is not the answer!

Well, that’s great for people in those cities in Japan, but it doesn’t do me much good in my own city where car and scooter drivers are not remotely so cautious.

Works the same in NYC. Cars are more careful because otherwise they’d hit cyclists, pedestrians, scooters and skateboarders.

Can’t say the same about other US cities.

    dart myself and my puppy out of the way of these jerks

Imagine what problems cars would cause if traffic regulations were not enforced.

Look at all the infrastructure, rules, regulations and surveillance we maintain to make the use of these large, heavy, loud, air polluting vehicles possible.

Why not put some effort into making the use of small, lightweight, silent, clean vehicles possible?

    snap a picture while keeping pup safe, would it be actionable?

Since the scooters have license plates, it should be actionable. Additionally, the scooters have pretty precise GPS. Which would in the majority of cases support the accusation of driving on the sidewalk.

> Why not put some effort into making the use of small, lightweight, silent, clean vehicles possible?

What for? So that they can extract more money and let the rest of us deal with the externalities?

This is the people telling those companies that they create too much hassle for what they contribute. People are still welcome to have their own lightweight, silent, clean vehicles. The various start-ups who came here were just too much of a pain for everyone.

> Why not put some effort into making the use of small, lightweight, silent, clean vehicles possible?

It’s already possible. The effort you seem to be requesting is the effort I already described as dangerous to me and my pup. If I’m understanding correctly: that’s why. Because it’s dangerous to me and my pup.

If I’m not understanding correctly, please feel free to clarify what effort you think I should be making to better accommodate these vehicles by which I wish not to be hit.

The problem with e-scooters isn't the scooters themselves, it's the reckless behavior they inspire in riders. Here's a device you don't own and aren't accountable for. For a couple bucks, it can go pretty fast, fit through narrow spaces, and there are no (enforcable) rules about where you can and can't ride it. Have fun!

There are so many logistical barriers to creating systems for accountability with rental scooters. First of all, remember that crime (and law enforcement) is an economy, and the fines have to be large and frequent enough to result in positive cashflow into the city. Otherwise, there is no incentive to enforce the rules. Now consider what a city would have to do to enforce the rules you suggested. The city will either need to

1) force the e-scooter companies to provide their data to law enforcement,

2) require the e-scooter companies to self-report misbehavior and pay the corresponding fines,

3) rely on citizens to report misbehavior.

Among the litany of reasons why (3) doesn't work is because it relies almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. (2) is laughable because the scooter companies have no incentive to self-report, and an audit would be hideously expensive for the city government. (1) doesn't work under US law because the police would need a warrant, or a legal hellstorm would ensue.

Bicycles also make no noise and emit no air pollution. They can also be electrically-powered, they are safer for the rider, and are limited by the laws of physics to safer, less erratic driving. They're faster and harder to steal. They're categorically better than e-scooters in every way except size, and as I said, even their size can be considered a strength.

Rental e-scooters were a fun experiment, and I will definitely tell my kids all kinds of stories about the stupid things I saw people do with them. If my city bans them, I will be pleased.

Budapest has a quite great bike rent network, you can pretty much get from any of its station to any other in at most 30 minutes, sometimes faster than with car or public transport!

The city also made quite a few changes in the last few years, sometimes giving whole car lanes to bikes, and all that for a monthly 3 euros or so price. I would much prefer a centralized solution like this over the ad hoc, leave everywhere scooter one. Bikes can also be misused, but have a better, existing culture/understanding, and are much more safer for the drivers (scooters have very low central mass and a small hole can cause really bad accidents).

Nope. Ban them.

When Lime, bird and (I think) spin came to my city, they were used heavily for a summer or two, but just as soon as it started, people realized they can buy a scooter for $400, weighs half as much, goes faster, and is effectively free (minus some nominal electricity charges) after the original purchase. For people who find themselves shocked at how much then spend just zipping around on a scooter, this is kind of a no brainer.

There are probably many more markers than these companies originally considered where scooter ownership works better than others, and it’s going to end up killing their foothold in the cities they operate in. I suspect as electric assisted bicycles become even cheaper and lighter, we will see the exact same trend.

For me, the whole value proposition of them is that I'm not committed to using them - I only do that when it's particularly convenient.

I don't know; for me the inconvenience of having to install an app and setup payment for one time or infrequent use is big enough to avoid it.

My "infrequent use" is 2-3 times monthly over last two years, easily worth it IMO.

It's a bit more expensive to fly with your $400 electric scooter too. Travelers are pretty numerous in the big scootering cities.

London next please.

I quite enjoyed the BBC’s take on this story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66682673

I don't quite know how to understand someone who spent "Forty years campaigning for cycle paths" but says:

> If I had my way, they would never have been invented, and today the population would be biking around the streets of Paris like it was Amsterdam in the '70s

1970s Amsterdam was the low-point in biking in that city. "The share of trips made by bicycle in Amsterdam plunged from 80% to 20% between the 1950s and 70s" https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...

1970s is when the "Stop de Kindermoord" protest movement started in the Netherlands, because drivers were killing too many children.

Escooters are amazing, convenient and IMO roughly as safe as bikes (a little harder to control but usually slower). I own and ride one in an European capital without issues.

Rental scooters, on the other hand, are basically drunken-tourist-wagens, usually ridden without safety equipment, any semblance of skill or care, on sidewalks and often by two people (which is IMO absolutely fucking insane).

There is nothing inherently more dangerous about rental e-scooters than about rental bikes, other than that rental bikes are much less used by tourists, and much more used for commuting by the locals. The idea behind this and other bans is that people were tired of the tourist shit, and the rental companies literally didn’t care at all. A helmet mandate would be easy to implement. Overweight protection (two people) would be easy to implement. Reducing the speed in the city center or during the rush hour or detecting all kinds of dangerous states (driving at full speed on cobblestone) would be easy to implement, but the rental companies didn’t care at all and now they’re getting kicked out. Good riddance I say.

Not to be contrarian but an e-scooter balance seems inherently less safe than a bike. It's actually one of the main concern when I'm around one, you see the base about to tilt ever 5m or so and you never know if the person splash in front of you.

The biggest issue is smaller wheels are less able to deal with bumps or holes in the road. Otherwise they're not significantly more unstable.

Maybe it's a matter of diameter. But quick changes in direction often make people have really scary swerves (center of gravity really off the scooter axis)

Yeah, the center of gravity of a scooter is higher, which makes it MORE stable than a bike, try balancing a pencil on your finger and then a broom. Which one is easier to balance?

The swerves look scary because the wheels can move a LOT laterally before the rider starts to feel unbalanced and has to take corrective action (an actual turn). It’s an optical illusion.

Yes, the wheels on some scooters are quite small and ride poorly over potholes. That’s a real issue that the rider needs to account for.

I think the mechanics of a scooter are too different to compare to a stick.

I'd really love a mechanics engineer view on this because having a center of gravity up high seems similar to the unsprung mass problem.

It can be stabler for a little bit but become unmanageable. And somehow I wouldn't want to drive nearby "optical illusion". Above 20mph things need to be dead simple, not maybes.

Great decision.

Is any company in that area actually making a profit? It just doesn't seem like a sustainable business model given all the work necessary to handle charging and distributing the scooters. I don't think you can arbitrarily jack up prices here as well to compensate.

Not the first. Amsterdam is an European capital that never allowed these rental 'scooters' ('steps' in Dutch) in the first place.

Btw, in Dutch 'scooter' is more like a sturdy motorized bike, a 'moped' maybe, in some languages? Those electric rental scooters can be rented in Amsterdam but are much more expensive. I assume Paris also continues to allow those.

> Btw, in Dutch 'scooter' is more like a sturdy motorized bike, a 'moped' maybe, in some languages?

Same in French, “scooters” are more like Vespa scooters than what English speaking people would call scooters.

> I assume Paris also continues to allow those.

AFAIK, the ban concerns only push scooters, so those should be fine. But I am not aware of any company renting them.

I have small kids and there are always idiots on electric scooters flying by on sidewalks that I worry will really hurt one of my kids. I don't think electric scooters are inherently unsafe (I own an e-bike), but I think the people who use them tend to be reckless and naive--and often drunk.