Just this week in Vantaa, Finland three 12-year-old girls piled onto one of those electric scooters you subscribe to with an app and proceeded to get run over by a car at a crossing, killing one of them

The app is supposed to have an age restriction but it's easy to bypass and you're not supposed to have more than one person riding on one, which people routinely ignore

I hate seeing kids and teens speeding around dangerously on those fucking things and then just leaving them laying around on high-traffic bike routes because they don't give a shit since they treat the scooters as completely disposable

Fucking awful bazinga-brained Silicon Valley-ass idea and business model. Actually, there are also bikes you can use with an app but curiously you don't see kids doing reckless shit with those, almost as if electric scooters were uniquely terrible thonk

  • BelieveRevolt [he/him]
    ·
    3 months ago

    People riding them drunk, falling and fucking themselves up.

    You could say "don't ride them drunk then", but when there's zero oversight that's what's going to happen.

    • space_comrade [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      People riding them drunk, falling and fucking themselves up.

      This happens with bicycles pretty regularly too.

      You could say "don't ride them drunk then", but when there's zero oversight that's what's going to happen.

      What oversight exists for bicycles?

      • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        What oversight exists for bicycles?

        Helmet laws; 200 years of largely safety-focused design refinements; significant safety regulations regarding things like brakes, lights, where they can be ridden...

        None of these things apply to scooters, which is why the injury rate for scooters per distance travelled is roughly 115/million trips vs 15/million trips for bicycles.

    • itappearsthat [he/him]
      ·
      3 months ago

      The scooter company apps don't let you rent them after midnight for exactly this reason.

    • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]
      ·
      3 months ago

      what solution for scooter regulation is not worse than the problem? Scooter access and methystikovalian lifestyles are basic a human right. Do we abolish scooters? Fill the streets with cops?