I'd heard of them, but I didn't realize how obnoxious these are till I saw them in person yesterday in Nashville. A required safety feature should be for them to beep loudly every five seconds, at least I'll have time to switch my brolly to "dismount the idiot" mode when walking down the sidewalk.
Finally, San Francisco cleans up the crap from its streets – yes, all those fscking scooters
San Francisco has banned commercial electric scooters, which can be rented via apps, from its streets – after several months of confrontation between the authorities and tech companies. Three upstarts – Bird, LimeBike, and Spin – that have littered the American city with thousands of scooters that can be grabbed, used, and …
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Tuesday 5th June 2018 20:56 GMT Destroy All Monsters
It really is the current year
A Pied Data Piper offering amazing-tech pleasure rides with negative externalities in a state in which coffee and WLAN are carcinogenic.
Only some reference to sanctuary cities and the #Resistance with multi billion-dollar payout due to perceived racially-charged microaggressions could top that.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 12:23 GMT paulf
Re: Google's First Law of Aquisition
FTA: "The others are trying a less aggressive line, saying they will [...] require driver licenses before approving users."
Another load of data to add to the pile of personal information required to use the service. I wonder how many services a driver's licence can be used to link in to, to
target ads more effectivelyimprove the user experience.
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Thursday 7th June 2018 06:19 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Surely the solution is simple
"I'd suspect if you were the last rider of a missing scooter the company might be coming after you for the replacement cost."
The problem is that they are very lightweight and easily picked up. The last person to officially use one may have properly put the scooter away and then somebody can by and took it away to harvest parts from it to sell. The company would have a hard time trying to collect.
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Tuesday 5th June 2018 21:11 GMT DCFusor
Old money vs new
Same old hypocrisy. "tech bros vs San Franciscans"? SF'ians "old money" are going "I got mine, you whippersnappers are a problem" - just like big tech's "kill zone" for threatening startups, or big corps lobbying for regulatory moats around their near monopolies that would otherwise be easily disrupted.
Left=Right=statist and status quo ante. Call me if that ever changes. It's only gotten more blatant in my 64 years...they used to hide it better - but they did it too back in the day. This is actually a very old story.
Ah, the wonders of the internet. Will anyone do anything but whine?
Glad I live in the mountains of the East, far from all those diseases caused by population density. It makes the 23 mile round trip to the beer store worth it not to have *any* of those kinds of troubles.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 18:23 GMT jake
Re: Old money vs new
Texas? No, I live in the West. Got kin in the hills outside Otto, N.C. though. I've "made it out" of the Smokies more times than I can count. Usually with a specialty product or two in tow. (I make my own country ham these days, and eventually I'll be licensed to sell Applejack here in California.)
Texas does have mountains, to be fair ... but they are all west of the Pecos, and to all intents & purposes should be a part of New Mexico ... or perhaps in their own state (they actually vote Democrat! In Texas! Whodathunkit?).
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Thursday 7th June 2018 21:27 GMT jake
Re: Old money vs new
"Ever drive down through Murphy NC via Hwy 64?"
Overnight at a friend's in Cleveland TN, about 110 miles & just under two hours ride to Franklin NC, hang a right ... Many times. Small world. Beer? :-)
Simi Valley is a poor representation of California. I helped a cousin of the Wife move out of there once. Good place to put in your rear view mirror.
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Tuesday 5th June 2018 22:01 GMT spold
Why would you be surprised that your data is being taken for a ride?
I'm thinking scrap metal collection trucks - electric driven by all those batteries that seem to come along with it for free. Until the ride companies go bust the city could adopt a zero cost perpetual motion model - transport powered by the ride companies and the scrap pays the collector's wages.
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Tuesday 5th June 2018 22:17 GMT The Nazz
Cheap ride?
As a Scotsman living in Yorkshire i, personally don't consider a $ plus tax a minute to be cheap, $69 an hour?
Not helped by listening to some great 1969 songs which make reference to earning 10/3 (shillings and pence) a week and lobbing half a crown to a disaster fund.
ps the full conditions of legal use seem a bit OTT. Also surprised you don't appear to need $10m of insurance.
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Tuesday 5th June 2018 22:42 GMT 89724102371719531892724I9755670349743096734346773478647852349863592355648544996313855148583659264921
50cc Motorised Bicycles
Simple, cheap (200mpg) but uninsurable and in the uk endless hoops for the owner to jump through. It should be a lot easier.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 10:03 GMT phuzz
Re: 50cc Motorised Bicycles
I'm pretty sure those electric scooters would be illegal on the road, and on the pavement in the UK, which would limit them to private property.
I did see someone on an electric bike recently which at first glance looked like a chunky mountain bike, but went like a greased whippet. The rider didn't have a helmet on of course, but still, it looked much more useable (and fun) than the usual pedals+motor setup of a normal electric bike.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 06:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Silicon Valley: A-Wall-Street-Mugs-Game
Example-1:
'Venture-capitalist false consciousness':
"An important story of the modern technology industry is its contribution to inequality, as entrepreneurs and venture capitalists become fabulously wealthy with scalable digital products that do not create lots of middle-class jobs to match the wealth they build for their tiny elite class of owners. At the limit, robots will do all the work, and the people who invent and own the robots will have all the wealth, and everyone else will Starve?"
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-18/silicon-valley-s-subscription-free-for-all
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Example-2:
'Even though the public owns the majority of Facebook's stock':
"Zuckerberg has ultimate control thanks to a special kind of stock that gives him 10 votes on corporate matters for every one vote of other shareholders. He can do almost whatever he likes with Facebook even though the public owns the majority of Facebook's stock".
http://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-07-06/linkedin-sale-to-microsoft-exposes-superpower-shareholder-tension
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 09:31 GMT Charlie Clark
Electric Mopeds
Here in Düsseldorf we're seeing the usual explosion on rentable bikes crowding out parking spaces for bikes – Mobike has just arrived – but with little use. But we've also got electric mopeds. These are provided by the local utility company and seem like a good idea. First of all, there aren't that many of them but they do seem popular with young adults as a better fit than either a bike, not least because you can ride tandem on them, or a car which you need a licence for. Based on the anecdotal evidence of what I see on the streets I reckon they have the best utility rate of all the options.
Information, in Jorman, if you're interested in the details.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 12:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Here in Austin...
We have (or had, and now they're back) these fucking things and as a pedestrian I hate them with a passion. The asshats that ride them don't give a flying fuck about anyone's safety, including their own, and I've been nearly run down multiple times walking on the sidewalk where these things are ILLEGAL to ride. I voice my opinion loudly every time it happens, usually greeted by a friendly one-finger solute from the jackass that nearly mowed me down.
No matter what you think of the tech, the bros that came up with the idea or the people that like to ride them, until they get some serious regulation and enforcement around how these scooters are actually used day in and day out, they are a public safety hazard. Guess it's going to take someone getting seriously injured or killed before the lawyers sue them all out of existence. Sadly, that can't happen soon enough.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 22:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Here in Austin...
You need to develop a sudden reliance on a walking cane for mobility assistance. The next time one of those asshats nearly runs you down, jab your cane through the spokes & send them flying. You can tell the judge that you were surprised, lost your balance, & were extending your cane to stay upright "and the next thing I know some sidewalk-driving-electric-cyclist was flying like a bird!" You can use your counter-suit-reward to buy yourself new canes!
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 12:45 GMT Nimby
how to deal with the fact that most users of the scooters persistently break the law
Golly gee willickers, if only the city could hire people with the explicit purpose of upholding law. Perhaps put them into standardized uniforms to make them easy to recognize. People who would then watch out for the breakage of laws and curtail individual lawbreakers with the express purpose of warning, fining, or even detaining them for periods of time. You know, people who could police the populace. It sure is a shame that such a thing obviously must not be possible.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 18:43 GMT jake
Re: how to deal with the fact that most users of the scooters persistently break the law
The police in San Francisco are so hamstrung by local politics that they have to fill out forms (in triplicate) before they are allowed to breathe when in uniform. Expecting them to actually do police work with all the constraints they work under is just plain silly.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 22:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: how to deal with the fact that most users of the scooters persistently break the law
I find a set of expertly thrown bolos through the spokes does an excellent job of stopping such folks from continuing their public safety hazard ways. Or a boomarang to the side of their head. Or a slingshot round into the buttocks. Or lying in wait on a conveniently placed rooftop above frequently traveled sidewalks where such riders tend to go so I can "accidentally" pour cauldrens of boiling oil down upon their head...
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Thursday 7th June 2018 06:27 GMT MachDiamond
Re: how to deal with the fact that most users of the scooters persistently break the law
Oh sure, I can just see officer Donut getting out of his full size SUV to chase a kid on an electric scooter slaloming through pedestrian traffic. Does he/she/It (SF, you never can tell) leave said SUV double parked blocking traffic as chasing takes place?
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 14:45 GMT Potemkine!
I bought one of those recently (Xiaomi M365). For the price the item is impressive. It's a good alternative to go to work rather than taking car or (motor)bike. Riding one is legally a grey area here in France. Technically, it's forbidden to drive one on roads (when electric bicycles are allowed, don't ask for MPs to be coherent), and it's tolerated on pavement, as long as you don't go faster than a pedestrian. It's also tolerated to drive one in bicycle lane, but it's just a tolerance. But living in Southern France, policemen are more relaxed and didn't bother me with such details for the moment.
I do not understand why these electric scooters aren't consider as bicycles, as long as they do not exceed a speed of 25 km/h (0.0002% of the maximum velocity of a sheep in a vacuum), are equipped with lights and brakes.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 15:13 GMT Charlie Clark
it's forbidden to drive one on roads (when electric bicycles are allowed, don't ask for MPs to be coherent)
Well, there is history: everything used to be allowed to use the road until they were so many cars that this was no longer safe. Bikes and horses were allowed to stay.
It's pretty elementary road safety: bikes have reasonably low centres of gravity which means that the users fly off them less often and less far in accidents. E-bikes are pedal-assist only or need insurance…
Every now and then there is a new form of transport whose fans think it should be allowed to be used on the road. Then there are the accidents… and the next fashion.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 17:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Credit reference check
> Among the eyebrow-raising rights that the companies award themselves is the ability to check users' credit ratings
I'm sure Equifax [1] will be round very quickly with the lawyers if they attempt to resell the credit reference info
[1] or whoever provides the check
Biting the hand that feeds IT
