Sometimes the stupidity of some people just amazes me. Take this tragic case of a 30-year old man who was killed because he was riding his e-scooter on an expressway in France. These vehicles are just motorized versions of the scooters we used to play with as children where you had to propel yourself forward by pushing on the ground with your legs. I have not seen them on the streets in the US but they seem to be popular in Europe.
The details that I have highlighted are just appalling.
A 30-year-old man has been killed after being hit by a motorbike while riding his e-scooter on a French motorway.
…The accident happened around midnight on Friday on the A86 at Velizy-Villacoublay, 4km from Versailles to the south-west of central Paris.
The scooter rider was not wearing a helmet and was reportedly travelling in the fast lane when the motorbike hit him from behind. Initial police reports said it was not clear if the scooter had lights.
The problem is that these things are dangerous for the users when they are on the streets but become dangerous to pedestrians when they travel on sidewalks (what we in the US call pavements) and so it is not clear what should be done about them.
A 25-year-old man was killed after being hit by a lorry in a northern district of Paris in June, the first fatal accident involving an e-scooter in the French capital. An 81-year-old man died after he was reportedly knocked over by an e-scooter in Levallois-Perret, a Parisian suburb, in April.
In the UK, the TV presenter and YouTube star Emily Hartridge was killed when her e-scooter collided with a lorry at a roundabout in Battersea, south-west London, in July.
In some respects, e-scooters are like bicycles and so should be regulated like them but they strike me as being much less visible to cars and much more vulnerable than cyclists.
Language is weird. We Dutch mean with scooter a type of motorbike.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Yamaha_Aerox_2011_.jpg
The e-scooter used to be called autoped, the name of a former American-Engligh company.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Autoped_1919_Ever_Ready_1.jpg
We call the kick-scooter a step.
There are lots of these things in the city where I live. They don’t bother me on sidewalks. They are only a little faster than typical human walking speed, and so far not a single one of these things has hit me. In my opinion, any device that encourages people to stop using cars is amazing. I love seeing bicycles, scooters, pedestrians, public transport, and whatever else in the city streets. As long as some person isn’t driving a car, I’m happy.
The problem isn’t that people use scooters for getting around. They should be welcome to do so. The problem is that most cities are designed with cars in mind and everybody else gets perceived as a nuisance by city planners. It should be vice versa. Cities should be designed for pedestrians, cyclists, scooters and so on. Whenever some street is too narrow to fit lanes for everybody, private cars should be the first thing that gets banned from said street.
The streets of Paris are strewn with these scooters -some capable of 25 MPH. They are not any longer supposed to ride on the pavement but they do, with disastrous results for many pedestrians. The riders are not insured by the companies that lease these objects and it is extremely unlikely that they have taken out coverage individually. Their own injuries are considerable as small
wheels meeting pot holes or cobbles at 20+MPH is not a recipe for stability.
Ban them before they can come to you.
e-scooters don’t kill people, stupidity kills people.
Mano
Somewhere there is a missing </i>
benedic @#3
I have a better proposal—let’s ban cars and let these things drive on lanes that were formerly reserved for cars. It’s incredible how every single green mode of transportation gets perceived as a problem or a nuisance, and cars are the only sacred mode of transportation that will always remain privileged. Whenever streets are too narrow to allow lanes for every possible method of transportation, cars will always remain the priority and will be the only thing that never gets banned. In the mean time, we all are welcome to breathe polluted air and die from the effects of the climate change.
Hang on, I thought WE in Europe call them “pavements”, and you in America call them “sidewalks”?
I’d feel more visible on an e-scooter than on one of these things.
I have thought about buying a scooter because the range (15-25km) and carrying capacity (up to 100kg) would be suitable for commuting to and from work, and it can be taken on the subway. In Taiwan (and some other places, like Japan) there are marked bicycle and pedestrian lanes on sidewalks to separate the two though there’s always at least one clod walking or riding in the wrong place…. There’s also a park near where I live which surrounds the suburb, an island in a river delta.
But I absolutely would NOT ride one without a bicycle helmet, and would likely wear gloves, elbow and knee pads as well. They have the speed of bikes with brakes that are far less effective. I’ve had my head hit the road bare when I was 18 (a huge gash) when hit by an inattentive driver, and my head saved after a hit and run 15 years ago (broken collarbone, but my head was fine). I cannot fathom why people don’t see them in the same class of transportation as bicycles.
I have a kick scooter which I use a lot in Midtown Manhattan. I wear a helmet (most of the time), use bike lanes when available, watch for car doors, go on sidewalks when they aren’t crowded, etc. My maximum speed is probably no more than 15 mph, and that’s going downhill. I don’t worry about e-scooters, and only worry a bit about e-skateboards.
What scares the crap out of me is the e-bikes. I do a lot of biking in Riverside Park at night, just about the time the delivery guys are on their way home. When I see a bike coming towards me and the person is pedaling slowly or not at all, I assume the person isn’t going fast. Well, I USED to do that. It is scary to have one of these things bearing down on you at 20-25 mph when the person is making no effort. They may or may not have lights, be wearing a helmet, be on the phone….
” I cannot fathom why people don’t see them in the same class of transportation as bicycles.”
I had an electric scooter that looked like a motor scooter ( Gio ). That really set people off -- especially as the city requires motorcycle helmet use on e-bikes. Those top out at from 18 -- 30 km/h and are great for casual touring of bicycle trails or bike routes ( the city has maps of those on its website ). I can’t see the smaller wheels and lower speed as being much of a problem when they enhance range and you should be on paved surfaces regardless -- and slowing near pedestrians. After vandalism destroyed that unit, my new e-bike with pedal assist stays in my apartment when not in use.
Now if I just could tear myself away from my motorbike……
Odd, I could have sworn that sidewalk was the US word for the side of a road, and pavement was the euro word.
(I’m sure you are dying to know, but here in Au the word is footpath.)
I tend to be a little reactionary towards any of the tech/ap-based type stuff.
Personally, I hate these scooters because they litter the sidewalks with them, blocking doorways, crosswalks, and the sidewalk itself. Many are broken and vandalized and otherwise unusable as scooters, yet they still clutter up the sidewalk.
I’ve also heard that they make navigating sidewalks even more difficult for people with disabilities.
I would likely feel differently about them if they were confined to docks or some other designated area.
I’m also skeptical as to how they can be profitable, considering how easily and frequently they are damaged. I wonder if it’s some attempt not to make a profit, but to undermine public transportation, and make ridesharing more profitable, or something similar.
It is an interesting thing about languages. When I wrote “when they travel on sidewalks (what we in the US call pavements)”, I thought it was clear that what I was saying was that in the US we use the word sidewalk for what people in some other countries call pavements. But it looks like cartomancer @#7 and Holms @#11 read it in the opposite way!
Another example of what Karl Popper said: “You cannot speak in such a manner that you cannot be misunderstood”.
In a coincidence, after I wrote this post, I saw a bicyclist riding on a highway! I have never seen this before. This is clearly illegal because the minimum speed for being on the highway is 40 mph, which would rule out pedestrians, bicyclists, and e-scooters.
This cyclist was riding on what in the US is referred to as the ‘shoulder’, the part on the right that is used only for emergency stopping. He was also wearing a bright orange vest and it was during a sunny day. But still, it struck me as very dangerous. The draft from passing trucks going at high speed would buffet him repeatedly and could even suck him into the traveling lane.
Mano @15:
I suspect it’s safer than biking (legally) along the part of the Trans-Canada highway going through the Fraser Canyon in British Columbia. I got scars, man! Maybe it’s safer now…
Mano,
‘Footpath’, over here.
This didn’t strike me as so much about the incredible, irresponsible risks of scooter users as it struck me as about the incredible, irresponsible risks of the French, using whatever vehicle, on their roadways.
When I went to stay the summer with the family of a french foreign exchange student that my family had hosted, I was picked up by the father at Orly. We took the A106 north to the A86 west to the A6b/E5 north. Having exited the A86 West we went up a rise to pass over one of the other freeways (it’s a big & busy intersection) and then got stuck in a terrible backup to merge with the A6b/E5 that we couldn’t see when we were exiting as it was on the downside of the overpass.
So what did my generous host do? Since we were ultimately headed northwest near St Germaine en Laye, he decided to continue west for a bit before heading north, so he threw the car into reverse, moved onto the left shoulder (and remember that the French drive on the right) and backed up at 30 or 40km/h down the off-ramp while other cars were passing feet to my right at 80km/h going the other direction.
I was, of course, in the back of their Citroen hatchback with nothing between me and the legally onrushing traffic, seated on the right with my suitcase on the left seat (no room to move over). Imagine also, if you please, that the left shoulder wasn’t actually big enough to fit the whole car, it was intended merely as a safety margin between traffic and the concrete barriers with the full shoulder for cars that break down over on the right. Yes, I was hanging out into the lane of onrushing traffic with a driver trying to peer between my luggage and me out a tiny back window so as to accurately direct the car in such a way as not to kill their guest in the unprotected back seat.
It was, in a word, terrifying.
Later I learned that in many places cars simply don’t stop when someone is waiting at a crosswalk. A million cars might happily speed by with you standing expectantly on the curb. Instead, they expect you simply to step out into traffic, at which point they immediately brake, somehow without constantly causing rear-end collisions. It appears they believe that if you’re not willing to take the risk of getting run over, you must not actually want to cross the street.
Transportation in and around Paris is madness. Sheer, unadulterated madness.
When the novelty value of e-scooters wears off and they become just another transport mode, their accident rate will sink to a reasonable value. Currently they’re too attractive to the idiot brigade as something to muck up on.
As for bicycle riding on highways, its sensible to avoid it where possible but sometimes it isn’t. Some highways completely replace local slower speed roads and offer no alternative. The city of Melbourne, Australia, has freeways with wide verges where cycling is allowed as the local roads are sometimes disconnected from each other.
The slip stream of passing trucks is less of a worry than a vehicle straying out of the travel lane, so it’s not something I’d do regularly. I’ve read many stories by cycle tourists who end up on a freeway because they can’t nut out the intricacies of the local road network. Where I live the freeway is off limits to bicycles but I occasionally meet a perplexed cycle tourist at our exit who can’t find the alternate route to the city. The signs to the cycle path aren’t quite as bold as they should be. Cars have little choice other than to use the freeway unless they travel many miles out of their way.
These scooters are becoming more and more popular, and frankly I think the concept is pretty neat. The scooters are GPS-tracked and electronically locked. If you need to get somewhere quickly that’s a bit far for foot but too close to justify the use of a car, you pull out the app, find the nearest scooter (it shows a map), scan the QR code, and ride to wherever you need to be.
Some may find the “scooters lying around anywhere” a nuisance but I’ve found that in general people park them in somewhat discreet locations.
That’s actually the French law ! Traffic is not required to stop until someone is in the crossing. (An undefined(?) “hand gesture” is considered equivalent; this is mostly for wheelchair users and people pushing child buggies, but can be used by anyone… although I suspect it’s ignored a lot.) I presume the pedestrian is not expected to step into the crossing (or gesture?) until there seems to be an adequate distance for a car to stop, and than in any case, not step out into the path of a car (from the gutter / kerb / curb area they stepped into off the pavement / footpath /sidewalk). Locally, I’ve seen a few close calls, and the first few approaching cars don’t always stop, but cannot recall any actual collisions. Whilst it seems to work locally, I don’t think the French have this one right. They’ve recently upped the penalties for not stopping, and are apparently experimenting with technology to detect (and record) a car which should have stopped but did not.
The one(?) time I do recall a collision was in England, where cars are supposed to stop when a person appears to be intending to cross. The driver — who to this day I insist was speeding albeit the police didn’t agree — didn’t try to stop until too late and hit the pedestrian, who was knocked down and to the side. I believe he was more bruised than anything else, but did go for a check-over at the hospital by ambulance.
I’ve had a few run-ins with the scooters in Marseille the last few weeks. One was actively dangerous, and the others were either annoying or mildly risky.
The dangerous one was two teenagers on a single scooter, riding at speed on the sidewalk / pavement / footpath into a group of pedestrians. Some were heading in the same direction as the riders, albeit slower; the others were heading in the opposite direction. It looked like the scooter-riders’s intent was to scoot “down the gap” between those two “lanes” of pedestrians, never mind there were a few people in that gap, or — like me — with a rucksake protruding into that gap. As it so happened, I was the second person they hit. The first person was blindsided from the rear but didn’t fall, whilst the scooter and riders bounced off and went straight into my rucksack (which I had swung in front me like a shield when I saw they weren’t slowing / stopping). I don’t recall bracing myself, but suspect I probably did.
That collision knocked both of the arseholes off the scooter, so of course they blamed me with yelled curses. Nothing came of it, they were sprawled on the ground with several upset people surrounding them, and I simply walked away. (The individual they hit first was clearly Ok.) It could have been worse, the individual they hit first, me, or them could have been knocked into the traffic on the road. (The traffic was moving very slowly, but still…) And / or that first blindsided victim could have been badly hurt. (Me too, I suppose, or one or both of them.)
The other incidents all involved poorly-parked scooters, including at least one which blocked the (narrow) sidewalk / pavement / footpath, forcing people into the path of traffic, albeit there wasn’t much on that particular (also narrow) road. Having said that, as others have also said, many do seem to be parked in a safer location / manner.
I do like the concept, albeit it’s clear there are implementation issues. Marseille (like Paris and some other French cities) also has a scheme where bicycles can be rented for a very modest fee at various stations (drop-off points), to be left at such a station when you’re done with it. Like the scooters, it’s all automatic, albeit unlike the scooters, you can only collect / return them at the stations. You can park them (they come with locks) as you go various places, you just have to return them to any station when you’re done.
@ 18 Crip Dyke
Transportation in and around Paris is madness. Sheer, unadulterated madness.
I used to live in eastern Saudi Arabia. I remember being on holiday in Paris and then Montreal Canada (infamous for its drivers) and thinking how calm the traffic was in both cities.
Even the cycling in the Paris suburbs seemed pretty calm after Dammam or Al Khobar in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. I have never tried cycling in central Paris.
A few years before, a Montreal taxi driver would have probably scared me half to death. When there on holiday, I tended to think they were rather conservative drivers.
Even mad French drivers do not match a 20 year old Saudi male behind the wheel. I do not think I have ever been in a car doing 160km/hr except there.
One more reason (added to money and climate) not to visit the Arabian peninsula then.
Years ago, we took a visiting physicist from Paris out for lunch in downtown Toronto. To cross College Street, we just stuck our hands out when there was a break in traffic, and started crossing. He was horrified that we would endanger our lives so readily.
The next summer, my group was in Paris to work with the same guy. He took us out one evening to see a movie (Chocolat; good film). Driving through one of the towns on the outskirts of Paris, there were lots of speed bumps on the smaller roads. He drove as if they weren’t there. Bumpiest ride of my life. Had to hold my hands over my head to stop my noggin impacting the roof of the car. We were horrified…
Mano @15:
“In a coincidence, after I wrote this post, I saw a bicyclist riding on a highway! I have never seen this before. This is clearly illegal because the minimum speed for being on the highway is 40 mph, which would rule out pedestrians, bicyclists, and e-scooters.”
Depends on the state and local rules. Here in California, generally speaking, bicycles and other slow vehicles are permitted on highways but not freeways. The difference is that freeways have controlled access, i.e., you always get on and off via ramps. In congested areas, that probably seems obvious for safety, though I have one friend who tried to shortcut his bicycle ride home from work one morning at about 3 am on a section of freeway. The cop who stopped him was pretty incredulous. Working too many hours without enough sleep impairs judgment.
However, once you get out of the city and suburbs, there are lots of high-speed highways, often with questionable shoulders. It’s disconcerting to bicycle along on a country road with tomato trucks blasting past you at 60 or 65 mph (speed limit 55, but some of these drivers are paid by the load). Cyclists get used to it. Where there is no shoulder, bicycles are permitted to use the full auto lane and pull over to let higher speed traffic pass only when it is safe. Yes, this really annoys some drivers, and seasoned cyclists have learned to be assertive about taking the full lane when necessary to make sure they’re not run off the road. Coexistence is remarkably good, considering.
Follow-up to @26, What’s going is a California transportation department rule / regulation to the effect that there must be a bicycle-able route broadly equivalent to the shortest route for a car. The simplest thing to do in some remote and mountainous areas is to allow bicycles to use the same route / road as the car, as described.
In Tulsa we have e-scooter rental in the downtown area. I haven’t seen anything about safety problems with them. That does not mean there haven’t been any, just that I haven’t been aware of them. I don’t live anywhere near the downtown area, and I avoid it if I possibly can.