E-scooters to be allowed on public roads

[captain nemo1701]

The Bristol backlash has started, going to sign this tonight:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/petition-launched-stop-e-scooter-9578756

As someone with a science degree, experiments or trials must end at some point with conclusions. The trial scooter firms here claim they're hugely successful...but... They only look at rental revenues and since they are a monopoly, of course they're 'hugely successful'.

I know some CC'ers don't have issues with escooters, but I do:

1. Cyclepaths are for cycling and those who appreciate the health benefits. They aren't intended for those who avoid effort at all costs, yet crave speed & convenience.

2. Regularly see two per hire scooter including parents with small kids holding on for dear life

3. Parents hire them so their kids can play on them.....on roads.

4. Ridden by inexperienced people who jump red lights or hop onto the pavement...to avoid said red lights.

5. They are practically silent, you can't hear them coming.

6. They are all over pavements...don't people's legs work?. I once avoided a collision with hire escooter rider coming down the pedestrians-only bus platform in Old Market, Bristol while waiting for a bus.

7. The hire ones encourage uptake of private ones. Prior to pandemic..one bloke on B2B path, now since Boris' incoming Govt of 2019 imposed the trial on us...many more. Local rag had bloke who had one scooter confiscated by cops wen out and splashed £3.5k on another...to have that confiscated. His excuse?...he thought they'd be legalised due to the hire 'trials'.

8. Its not just escooters but eskateboards and those ewheels for posers. Followed bloke one night home on one, never indicated, no shoulder checks and yep...straight onto the pavement to avoid the lights. More about looking cool than safety. Was wearing a stupid amount of body armour for his safety...but what about others on cyclepaths/pavements he may collide with?. I see a guy jazzed up in PPE on a fast escooter in Bristol - he's in full face motorbike helmet, mirrored ski goggles (No ID please, I'm on a banned machine), elbow pads etc. He's not going for a 15mph pootle in that gear....clear bit of path, engage warp drive....

9. Escooters are an evolution of 90's 'go-peds', used to be bloke riding one around Bristol. Awful things, noisy, ton of pollution. Bad idea then, bad now. They are transport for the bone idle and don't reduce congestion at all.

 

[Drago]

The Great British public have proven time and again they can't be trusted with anything. If there's a way to mess about and takes the pith they will.

 

[classic33]

The Bristol backlash has started, going to sign this tonight:

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/petition-launched-stop-e-scooter-9578756

As someone with a science degree, experiments or trials must end at some point with conclusions. The trial scooter firms here claim they're hugely successful...but... They only look at rental revenues and since they are a monopoly, of course they're 'hugely successful'.

I know some CC'ers don't have issues with escooters, but I do:

1. Cyclepaths are for cycling and those who appreciate the health benefits. They aren't intended for those who avoid effort at all costs, yet crave speed & convenience.

2. Regularly see two per hire scooter including parents with small kids holding on for dear life

3. Parents hire them so their kids can play on them.....on roads.

4. Ridden by inexperienced people who jump red lights or hop onto the pavement...to avoid said red lights.

5. They are practically silent, you can't hear them coming.

6. They are all over pavements...don't people's legs work?. I once avoided a collision with hire escooter rider coming down the pedestrians-only bus platform in Old Market, Bristol while waiting for a bus.

7. The hire ones encourage uptake of private ones. Prior to pandemic..one bloke on B2B path, now since Boris' incoming Govt of 2019 imposed the trial on us...many more. Local rag had bloke who had one scooter confiscated by cops wen out and splashed £3.5k on another...to have that confiscated. His excuse?...he thought they'd be legalised due to the hire 'trials'.

8. Its not just escooters but eskateboards and those ewheels for posers. Followed bloke one night home on one, never indicated, no shoulder checks and yep...straight onto the pavement to avoid the lights. More about looking cool than safety. Was wearing a stupid amount of body armour for his safety...but what about others on cyclepaths/pavements he may collide with?. I see a guy jazzed up in PPE on a fast escooter in Bristol - he's in full face motorbike helmet, mirrored ski goggles (No ID please, I'm on a banned machine), elbow pads etc. He's not going for a 15mph pootle in that gear....clear bit of path, engage warp drive....

9. Escooters are an evolution of 90's 'go-peds', used to be bloke riding one around Bristol. Awful things, noisy, ton of pollution. Bad idea then, bad now. They are transport for the bone idle and don't reduce congestion at all.

I get the feeling that you don't like them.

 

[grldtnr]

I get the feeling that you don't like them.

Your not wrong there ! I've absolutely no interest in them , and just cannot understand why people think they can ride these things with impunity! They are a menace, totally unsafe, mainly because the way they are ridden, the times I've caused riders of these things to reconsider their actions, I WILL NOT yield to anyone on the pavement, riding one, i sometimes walk with a hiking stick, if someone approaches me at speed, i raise it to waist height at their guts, .....it's their decision , stop, slow down or avoid me the choice is entirely theirs to make.
Mostly they panic and avoid me, I have yet to make contact , but I waiting for it to happen.
If they must use them illegally on the pavement, at the very least they ought to give way to pedestrians,likewise for those who cycle on the pavement.

It's weird ,they claim it's dangerous to ride on the road, coz the very same people they fear are driving ,
Go figure.

 

[Dadam]

1. Cyclepaths are for cycling and those who appreciate the health benefits. They aren't intended for those who avoid effort at all costs, yet crave speed & convenience.

They are for cycling for any purpose including those who crave speed and convenience. It's not compulsory to "appreciate the health benefits" to use them.

5. They are practically silent, you can't hear them coming.

Like bicycles

6. They are all over pavements...don't people's legs work?. I once avoided a collision with hire escooter rider coming down the pedestrians-only bus platform in Old Market, Bristol while waiting for a bus.

Like bicycles

I'm not a fan either but let's be accurate.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

They are for cycling for any purpose including those who crave speed and convenience. It's not compulsory to "appreciate the health benefits" to use them.


Like bicycles


Like bicycles

I'm not a fan either but let's be accurate.

Yes - if we are complaining about them being silent then we would have to praise the k*******s on VERY noisy scrambler bike who buzzed me a few weeks ago
OK - most are in the same KH category - but escooters are not the problem - it is some of the riders

 

[Bristolian]

Both of the trials in Bristol have, to my mind, been abject failures but for some reason the powers that be don't appear to have the moral fibre or small spherical objects to admit this and call a halt. I live in a cul-de-sac where all of the residents are over 55 years old* and/or disabled in someway. We are about half a mile from UWE's Frenchay campus and there are lots of HMOs rented to students in the surrounding roads. Just over my back garden fence is a public footpath linking our road to the local railway station car park, from which you can also get to local shops and (you guessed it) UWE.

About 100m from our end of the footpath there is an official parking zone for the trial scooters and bikes on a wide section of pavement, where there are signs telling the riders that they must park in the zone or face a fine. During the day this is pretty much empty but from mid-afternoon onwards it begins to fill up with scooters and bikes. The problem (and this related primarily to the scooters) is that it's not the parking area that fills up, it's the pavement next to it making it very difficult for the residents, many of whom are disabled, to get past with their mobility scooters or wheel chairs. The pavement isn't the only trouble spot either, riders just dump (particularly) the scooters wherever they want making life difficult for everyone. On the whole, the bike riders do seem to be more aware and park responsibly.

Part of the UWE campus grounds are on my warm-up route whenever I go out on the bike so I know where the scooters and bikes are during the day, and miraculously they are virtually all lined up in the parking zones marked out by the university. If they can do that there why can't they do it elsewhere?

TIER dott - the local trial company - state on their web site "Users will need to download the TIER app and create an account and prove they are over the age of 18 with a valid full or provisional driving licence to ride an e-scooter." Well, all I can say is, unless our local high school has some extremely young looking and short 18 year olds that ain't happening. So how do they get to hire these things? Clearly, parents (or some other adult) must be creating false accounts for these kids, including verifying a driving license, so they will be riding a legal scooter illegally, with no insurance as a consequence. I have queried this with TIER in the past and all they say is "we have verified the customer's driving license so we're confident of our systems" - well the Captain of The Titanic was sure his ship was unsinkable and look where that got him.

In use they are too fast to be safely ridden on the pavement and too slow for the roads, oddly though I'm not aware of as much animosity towards scooter riders as there is against cyclists. Undoubtedly, there will be lots of people that think they're great - mostly users, I suspect - but I'm willing to bet that the majority of residents of Bristol (including me) would prefer they were gone. I will be signing the petition.

* The houses on our street are ex-local authority. When the council owned the houses they were part of an assisted living zone with restrictions on who could live there. When the housing stock was sold off an enduring covenant (or some such document) was applied to every house in the street which ensures that those restrictions will remain in force for at least 999 years. The legality of the covenant was tested in court in 2022 when one of the houses was purchased by a property developer who tried to rent it out as an HMO - he lost

Apologies for the long post

 

[grldtnr]

E+ scooters are not the problem it's the feckless burkes on them,, seems to me these nerks ride on the pavement ,......just because,....
It's not the safety, it's the breaking the rules.....pushing boundaries, ' coz it's not allowed or frowned on, they do it to be ' cool'.

Simple matter of fact. If you haven't the brass balls to ride on the road then just don't ride on the pavement walk or get the bus!

 

[Drago]

The trials have been running 5 years now. How long does a trial need to run before the government realises people ride like prats and the wider public want them off the streets?

 

[captain nemo1701]

They are for cycling for any purpose including those who crave speed and convenience. It's not compulsory to "appreciate the health benefits" to use them.


Like bicycles


Like bicycles

I'm not a fan either but let's be accurate.

I used to have fat MTB tires, you can hear them. Plus, I can hear people on bikes coming up behind...creaking of frames, sound of pedalling, brakes etc. Escooters are practically silent. So I would refute the claim that bikes are quiet.

 

[captain nemo1701]

They are for cycling for any purpose including those who crave speed and convenience. It's not compulsory to "appreciate the health benefits" to use them.


Like bicycles


Like bicycles

I'm not a fan either but let's be accurate.

Also, never seen a bike on that ped platform in Old Market. And are cyclepaths for banned motorised transport?....

 

[Drago]

TIER dott - the local trial company - state on their web site "Users will need to download the TIER app and create an account and prove they are over the age of 18 with a valid full or provisional driving licence to ride an e-scooter." Well, all I can say is, unless our local high school has some extremely young looking and short 18 year olds that ain't happening. So how do they get to hire these things? Clearly, parents (or some other adult) must be creating false accounts for these kids, including verifying a driving license, so they will be riding a legal scooter illegally, with no insurance as a consequence. I have queried this with TIER in the past and all they say is "we have verified the customer's driving license so we're confident of our systems" - well the Captain of The Titanic was sure his ship was unsinkable and look where that got him.

The adult concerned commits an offence of use, cause, or permit and the child riding such a fraudulently hired device comments taking a motor vehicle without owners consent.

That adults think nothing of breaking such laws and are careless of the consequences is breathtaking in either its carelessness or arrogance.

 

[Dadam]

I used to have fat MTB tires, you can hear them. Plus, I can hear people on bikes coming up behind...creaking of frames, sound of pedalling, brakes etc. Escooters are practically silent. So I would refute the claim that bikes are quiet.

Depends on the bike, no? Some bikes are near silent. My frames don't creak and only one of mine has fat knobbly tyres.

Also, never seen a bike on that ped platform in Old Market.

Not familiar with that location but it's irrelevant as the point was generalised.

And are cyclepaths for banned motorised transport?....

Of course not. To reiterate, I'm not in favour of e-scooters generally. Not sure what, if any, point you are making there. Seems a straw man fallacy.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Depends on the bike, no? Some bikes are near silent. My frames don't creak and only one of mine has fat knobbly tyres.

Not familiar with that location but it's irrelevant as the point was generalised.


Of course not. To reiterate, I'm not in favour of e-scooters generally. Not sure what, if any, point you are making there. Seems a straw man fallacy.

The pedestrian platform is for bus passengers, its the last place you'd expect a numpty riding an escooter. I made the point as its another reason for getting rid of them, they are all over pavements which, unsurprisingly, aren't meant for them. Thus, its relevant.

And here's the pathway she took - right through crowds of waiting passengers whereas she should have ben on the road, enter the ASL and then switch to the cycle lane to cross the junction. The route she took means having to cross a bit of road the buses use to get into the stop:

In yellow is the route she took, right through a crowd, red is where she should have been. Obviously not confident in traffic, so IMHO, shouldn't really be on the darned thing in the first place. We've created a culture where anyone can hire them on their phone & ride off with zippo road experience. Then, its straight up onto the pavement if the road look iffy....

I commute every day on the B2B path and can hear cyclists coming from behind....even carbon fibre bikes. I once almost got knocked down by a private escooter rider on the pavement as I approached a junction. Lucky I did a shoulder check for turning cars...idiot shot past on the pavement crossing my path & I almost fell back into the bushes. Naturally, he never stopped to apologise.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I am pretty sur ethese "trial" scooters can be identified easily by the company that runs them

If they mounted a camera and detector on routes where people complained then they would easily catch the culprits

but that, of course, would affect profits