Madrid Bans Hired E-scooters Over Safety Concerns (lemonde.fr) 55
Madrid City Hall said on Thursday it would ban all rental e-scooters from October because of the risk they pose to pedestrians, the latest city to make the move. From a report: "We are withdrawing authorization for companies hiring out scooters on the city's streets," the Spanish capital's conservative mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida wrote on X. "Our priority is the... safety of the people of Madrid," he said, adding that the measure would "take full effect in October." The three companies currently with licenses to rent out e-scooters on the streets of Madrid -- Lime, Dott and Tier Mobility -- will now have to remove their devices. These firms "did not comply with the conditions we imposed to guarantee the safety of pedestrians, particularly the elderly," the mayor said. Madrid City Hall criticized the firms for not using technology to prevent e-scooters from driving or parking in prohibited areas and lacking the appropriate accident insurance.
Finally some common sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Half the time people using e-scooters don't slow for pedestrians and had a couple of close calls that if I didn't stop I would have been hit.
Heck, there was a video from Vancouver (I think) an e-scooter was riding in the middle of the highway.
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this is madrid. expect this ban to be silently dropped and new regulations put in place in a few months time and a). a new company appearing out of nowhere that will somehow be found out to be super compliant or b). those three suddenly super willing to pay extra taxes.
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Don't forget the boost to organ donations.
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Seems unlikely.
Take this article which the usual idiots were all over:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art... [bbc.co.uk]
Also, shame on the BBC for reporting "big" numbers by heavily aggregating in a sensationalist way.
Hundreds of injuries in Essex! (well 230). Spread over... 5 years. So under 50 per year..
So dangerous. Not like the cars responsible for 3,500 injuries per year in Essex.
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This, and many of the posts below that deride the scooters, is complaining about other peoples behavior and their use of the scooters, not any problem with the scooters or the system itself. WTF?
Oh no! You almost got hit by someone (on a scooter)! Firstly, "almost", so no harm was done. More to the point, that person could have owned their own scooter, or any other device, or been on roller skates, or just jogging, and it's the exact same thing. Would you want to ban running shoes and roller skates too? Or
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But if you're proposing that we ban them while allowing people to own and operate them (rather than rent), WTH man? Where's the logic in that?
People that have their own personally owned scooter won't leave them parked inappropriately, and generally have a higher likelihood of becoming more proficient as a rider than someone who just used an app to hop on a rental. It's anecdotal, but most often when I see someone doing stupid shit on a scooter, it's a Bird or Lime rental.
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Speaking personally, I use a scooter extensively, living inner city with nowhere to put a car. The thing has been liberating.
Scooters should be encouraged. If we've got any hope of meeting carbon targets, scooters could potentially make a huge difference. One study found a scooter uses less power in a year than a Tesla uses in a couple of days. The only things that come close are walking and bicycles, and thats a solution that only really works for a limited super healthy cohort. For the rest of us slobs sc
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Firstly, "almost", so no harm was done.
I'll keep that in mind next time I pass a cyclist in my car with inches to spare.
No harm, no foul. amirite?
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I'll keep that in mind next time I pass a cyclist in my car with inches to spare.
As if that doesn't happen constantly the entire time one rides a bike in a city. And yet, we're not screaming to have _rental_ cars banned.
There's also a HUGE difference in scale here. Person on scooter to person, versus tons of steel on wheels to person balancing on a few metal tubes (as well as other modes of transport, including walking). A scooter *almost* hitting me is, IMO, on par with a jogger almost running into me. BFD.
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Madrid already has a city bike scheme with fixed stalls such as you describe.
Why just Rental Though? (Score:2)
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It's similar to how a rented U-haul driven by a noob is more dangerous than a U-haul owned by a professional mover.
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It's similar to how a rented U-haul driven by a noob is more dangerous than a U-haul owned by a professional mover.
Great. So we should NOT ban either?
Re:Why just Rental Though? (Score:4, Informative)
because this isn't about safety at all.
the official reasons are that these companies failed to meet the following requirements of the license:
- failure to provide access to detailed information about deployment distribution and operation
- impossibility to check if ratios of deployment are observed (due to that lack of access)
- impossibility to check if parking installation requirements are met (due to that lack of access)
- failure to prove liability insurance covering up to 1 million €
- failure to prove aptitude of instruction to users about procedures in case of accident (specifically hitting a pedestrian, basically the obligation to notify local police)
as you can see, only the last point is actually related to safety, and only tangentially, but the fun part is that all this only applies to the circa 6000 units that these 3 companies combined were authorized to operate, *not* to all other users of scooters in madrid which are estimated at about 100,000. those are not required at all to obtain such instruction, there is no specific provision in the regulation nor do they need any liability insurance at all. because reasons.
which won't stop the major of madrid (this utter moron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (note: that was a prank call)) to tweet that this was about "the safety of our elderly". apparently the other 994,000 scooter drivers have an innate respect for the elderly.
since this is very obviously not about safety, it can only be about 2 things: political show or money (or both). in this case i'd bet on money. you don't do business without behaving with the cartel, on ground zero of the most corrupt kingom in western europe no less. as i said before (and was modded troll) we'll find out in a few months, if not sooner.
for what it's worth (in spanish),
the official press release for the ban:
https://diario.madrid.es/blog/... [madrid.es]
the requirements for the license in 2022
https://sede.madrid.es/FrameWo... [madrid.es]
all that said, i fully agree that scooters are a real problem that would need addressing, but this is not even trying.
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21 August 2024:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts... [youtube.com]
Re: Finally some common sense (Score:2)
Montreal in Canada banned them too, due to non-compliance, back in 2020: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]
Re: Finally some common sense (Score:1)
They should put automatic emergency braking on them. The problems will solve themselves
Ban cars first (Score:3, Interesting)
Cars are more dangerous. Ban those first, except for emergency services & people with disabilities. Then the e-scooters can safely use the streets.
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I also agree that no vehicles whatsoever should be allowed on public roads specifically in your city.
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Right? All I hear when I read about these things happening is that people are mad about "new thing". Not the actual danger to pedestrians. If they won't also ban cars, then it's all performative.
Oh really? Do cars regularly ride on the road, then hop the curb onto the sidewalks when they hit traffic, only to hop back onto the road whenever it suits them? Because that is what idiots on these scooters do regularly.
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violating speed limits, making massive amounts of noise, creating massive amounts of localized pollution, constant demands for more infrastructure, causing climate change, destroying independence for so many people, causing crashes that result in significant amounts of death.
All vehicles have their place and purpose, but if you can't see the difference between micromobility and a 4000lb vehicle nobody can help you.
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All vehicles have their place and purpose, but if you can't see the difference between micromobility and a 4000lb vehicle nobody can help you.
When privately owned and responsibly ridden, electric kick scooters certainly can play a part in reducing dependance on automobiles. The problem with rental scooters, however, is that they've exceeded both their place and purpose by dumping these scooters all over and encouraging anybody to use them with no training, and at least from what I've seen in my city, no helmets.
Weather and rider skill permitting, e-scooters are a clean, efficient way of getting around and their use absolutely should be encourage
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Drivers break the law all the fucking time.
I ride with bike cams, and there's probably 5 incidents per day I catch on my cameras (which of course excludes any speeding offenses) that I could report as serious enough to get points on a license. I don't have the time or energy to report all but the most serious and the police rarely follow up anyway.
Nonetheless I've got a number on the go right now and several have moved on to a further stage.
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Hmmm?
No. It doesn't, but I do question the motivations of people who really aggressively complain about something like that while ignoring the murderous elephant in the room.
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I don't think you actually have to *ban* cars to reduce their impacts. The Netherlands is famous for being cyclist friendly, but in fact historically it never set out to get people out of cars onto bikes. It set out to make its streets safer for everyone. Consequently drivers from out of the country report that driving is easy because of impeccably engineered and maintained roads and law-abiding drivers.
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Yep.
Cars are a phenomenally inefficient way of using road space, about the worst way of moving people around. But sometimes they are the best option. Making all the not-car options as good as possible removes drivers from the road, leaving the limited space more available for those who really need it, so driving is better too.
But the motorist lobby in my country will fight anything that doesn't put cars in first place absolutely tooth and nail, while complaining about traffic.
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Cars are more dangerous.
If cars were limited to the 18MPH or so that rental scooters max out at, they'd be significantly safer than the scooters. A few months ago when my partner and I were downtown for a concert, we saw someone hit a curb and eat shit on a Bird scooter. The problem is that there is a bit of a learning curve to riding an electric kick scooter and these rental companies have been promoting them as something anyone can just hop on and go.
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If cars were replaced by unpowered foam cubes they'd be SO MUCH safer than a scooter.
Also, you know for whom? That scooter rider who ate shit, did they hit anyone else? Fact is scooters are tiny things and narrow, even if out of control, that little scooter at 15.5mph (the speed here) is less likely to hit you. And frankly, while I'd rather not be hit with either, if I did get hit, there's no risk of ending up under the wheels of a multi-ton scooter.
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The rider hit the curb (they missed the ramp going from the crosswalk in the street onto the sidewalk) and then fell face first on the sidewalk. From my vantage point inside our car, it didn't look like their fall injured anyone else.
Downtown Orlando limits rental scooters to 10MPH, so they're mostly just a hazard to the person riding them. Neither the roads nor the sidewalks are really in any condition to accommodate scooter riding, so there's ample opportunities for a ride to end in the ER. I've also s
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Downtown Orlando limits rental scooters to 10MPH, so they're mostly just a hazard to the person riding them.
Well, that's fine then. I'm all for freedom and personal responsibility but not when it's the freedom to put other people at risk. So tax SUVs into oblivion and allow people to ride electric scooters.
Neither the roads nor the sidewalks are really in any condition to accommodate scooter riding, so there's ample opportunities for a ride to end in the ER
40,000 people per year die in car accidents in the
Scooter safety is about much more than cars. (Score:2)
Slow doesn't necessarily mean safe and urban commerce requires greater payloads than scooters, cargo bikes, etc can handle.
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Slow doesn't necessarily mean safe
Statistically it does. You can kill someone at one mile per hour if you try hard enough, but on the whole slower is safer.
urban commerce requires greater payloads than scooters, cargo bikes, etc can handle.
You can get cargo bikes with payloads of 300kg. Very few people are regularly hauling that much cargo in a car.
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Cars will certainly cause more damage, but most drivers realize that if they hit a pedestrian they're in deep shit and will try to avoid doing so. People on scooters (or even cyclists) tend not to think that they should practice any kind of defensive driving and will act like pricks at a much higher rate.
This made-up fact brought to you by the right wing press which has been aggressively attacking cyclists as demonic for decades.
This is simply, flat out not true.
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E-scooters were supposed to help the car traffic problem (congestion, pollution etc.) by replacing car trips, thereby reducing car traffic and increasing safety and reducing emissions.
Paris found that due to the substitution effect, the e-scooters weren't really replacing car trips, they were just replacing walking trips or metro trips. Therefore they were actually reducing pedestrian safety and increasing emissions, literally the opposite of the advertised, wi
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What Madrid is complaining about is scooters aren't compliant with laws: 1) lack insurance, 2) lack ability to be blocked from pedestrian areas. If the rental companies had 1) subscribed civil liability insurance on behalf of the users, and 2) implemented geofencing technology, they wouldn't be banned. These things aren't a problem with cars: they have compulsory insurance and municipalities find it easy to block car entrance in pedestrian areas.
i hope the gov bans them near me (Score:2)
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so i can buy one at a bargain discount price
There's a few videos on YouTube of people pulling them out of lakes. Anything that you're likely to find recently (these scooters have a fairly limited lifespan out in the wild, so the days of the ones where you could replace the "brain" with one from Aliexpress are long gone) would need the motor controller replaced anyway, so they shouldn't be any worse for wear from being underwater. The battery packs in current generation rental scooters are generally sealed relatively well against water, too.
Technica
I used those (Score:1)
I used those Lime and another competitor, I forget the name. They were great in Oslo or Helsinki, I forget which, and no animals were harmed. Maybe the pedestrian density is higher in Madrid or something. It was really a non-problem where I was using them and the walk would have been really long, 20-30 minutes between each stop.
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I used those Lime and another competitor, I forget the name.
I had the brilliant idea once of parking about a mile and a half away from a destination downtown and then taking a Lime scooter the rest of the way. Damn thing ended up costing as much as it would've to just park my car in the paid parking garage at my destination.
That being said, it was kind of fun in a I'm in danger [youtube.com] sort of way, because my uncoordinated middle-aged self should not be allowed anywhere near an electric scooter. It's a miracle I didn't bust my ass riding it.
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After a little cobweb-removal I now recollect the ones I rode were in Helsinki, and for the time I was there there was no car related transpo involved so I got a lot of hours on the little stinkers. You are not wrong about them feeling a little capt dangerous at first but by the second day I was used to them and by the end of the stay I was considering getting a Segway or similar eScooter.
So far I've waved off personal ownership, as part of the utility of the Lime scooters was that I could find and reserve
People leave them blocking everything (Score:1)
They belong in the dumpster.
I enjoyed them, but I hate them (Score:3)
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I've seen them toppled over in the middle of side roads in downtown Orlando. Yeah, you can call to report it but usually what happens is someone just has to get out of their car and toss the damn thing back onto the sidewalk, where it then becomes a nuisance for pedestrians. The "dockless" concept was a complete bust.
License (Score:3)
You should have to have a license to use those things, and have 3rd party insurance, like any other motor vehicle.
Scooter entitlement has to stop (Score:2)
Fines (Score:2)
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A couple fines should be enough to stop people from driving them onto sidewalks.
In some cities you're actually encouraged to ride on sidewalks because it'd be suicide to take them into the roads. Orlando allows sidewalk riding and the scooters are limited to 10MPH. As much as people like to complain that the sidewalks are for pedestrians, there really aren't many people walking around downtown Orlando most hours of the day. It recently scored a walkability score of 41 [wftv.com], so most people get around the city by car.
The main problems with the scooters is that they end up parked literally
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Unfortunate but inevitable? (Score:2)
It's unfortunate, since those kinds of devices do help to improve personal mobility for that last km/mi type of distance.
However, having been blindsided by an e-bike on the sidewalk in urban Philly back in April, nothing actually broken, but black eyes, bruised face, bruised ribs, and split lip, it's hard to imagine that a mixed mobility situation (peds, peds with leashed pets, e-scooters, e-bikes, mobility challenged people, etc.) with machines that go fast can work without extreme policing measures.