Electric scooters

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'd like to start off by saying that I love the concept of electric scooters, and, if I didn't actually need something bigger for work, I'd probably get one for commuting.  I mean, what's not to like about them?  No license, no insurance, no taxes, no registration fees, environmentally friendly, no parking hassles, and the city has set up bike lanes everywhere so you really don't have any major traffic headaches.  I think these are a great form of transportation, especially in a city like mine where there are a lot of hills- in fact, the entire city is a hill.  A little clean electric power helps a lot in a city like mine.

On paper it's hard to beat them.  In practice?  Well, that's another story.  Because there's no license required, there's no training course required or even available, and as a result many electric scooter riders don't know or care about the rules of the road and weave in and out of traffic with impunity.  This is extremely dangerous, especially when you consider that every other vehicle on the road is significantly larger and heavier, with exponentially greater mass than the tiny scooters, and that the only protection for scooter riders is that they are legally required to wear one of those foam and plastic bicycle helmets.

Because there is no registration, there is no way to report them for driving dangerously, and since there's no insurance for them, the insurance paid for by the person driving the car or truck is going to take the hit, regardless of who is at fault.  And, everyone is going to blame the car driver because he/she "probably wasn't looking because they were texting" or something.  Not all drivers play with the stereo, text, eat or apply makeup while driving, but that's how it's presented when someone on a bicycle, scooter or motorcycle gets run over.

On top of that, by not paying taxes, any damage to the city streets or other property, not to mention the police, fire and ambulance that has to come to the scene are all paid for by the guy in the car, who already paid taxes to pay for the bike lane the guy on the scooter often wasn't using.

If you drive one of these scooters (or a bicycle or motorbike) please be careful, learn and obey the rules of the road around you.  Cyclists and motorcycle drivers are a lot better off as bikes have mass and power to escape or resist small impacts, and bicycles have the agility to avoid a lot of problems.  Scooters have too much mass to be agile or stop quickly and are too underpowered to pull out of the way of a problem before it hits them.

Def

[Taxi Dad]

we have a lot of 'mobility scooters' round here (piloted by old folk) and they are a bloomin menace !
 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Those can be a pain as well, but I am talking about the current popularity of these things:



They look like standard type scooters like a Vespa but they are about half the size and all electric.

Def

[Taxi Dad]

haven't seen one yet round here,only bicycles with powerpacks, but i'll bet they are good for creeping up on pedestrians ? do they make much noise 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Absolutely no noise whatsoever- at least none that you would be able to hear over regular traffic.  If you don't have those there then consider yourself lucky.  As I said, people who ride them are all over the place because they don't know they aren't supposed to follow the rules of the road- or at least they know they should but don't care because they have no documented responsibility.

Def

[jzmtl]

No, but good thing they aren't allowed on sidewalk!

[enki_ck]

No, but good thing they aren't allowed on sidewalk!

Bad thing is people driving them think they are driving a motorcycle, in the middle of the road, at 35km/h. If you've ever been stuck in traffic behind one of those you'll understand.

[MadPlumbarian]

Nothing like my old ladys, hers has 6 wheels, and only goes about 12mph, but it is quite and good for running feet over, trust me i know! lol JR

[Whoey]

scooters, electric and otherwise are somewhat a plague over here in Europe... they are everywhere, and don't generally obey traffic laws.

[Grant Lamontagne]

No, but good thing they aren't allowed on sidewalk!

That's part of the problem- they do go up on the sidewalks then leap back into traffic.  There's no accountability, and since they are virtually silent there's no warning when the idiots come flying out in front of you.

I think at the very least there should be some registry and license plate put on them so we can report the dangerous ones.  Of course, I think the same thing about bicycles as many of them tend to do the same things. 

Def

[PTRSAK]

Bah! Scooters are a plague on the roads, ridden by people who are (generally) oblivious to any of the basic road-craft involved in staying safe on two wheels.
I am so glad we don't have those electric ones you're talking about here. At least even the 50cc petrol ones have rego and you need at least a car license to ride one.

As a motorcyclist of 30+ years I look at most scooter riders (and some motorcyclists) and think "You, have no idea how much it hurts when you come off that thing." And it's true, I had a work colleague who started riding a scooter because it was cheaper, quicker and more convenient than the train (not hard here) and when I commented on him not wearing gloves he said things like "Oh, this can only do 50km/h", and "but it's only 7km from home to here."
I had to explain to him that coming off at "only" 50km/h would be like driving along in a car, opening the door and jumping out, or nearly twice as bad as running as fast as he could and taking a full stretch dive onto concrete. I even gave him an old pair of M/C gloves, but I don't think he wore them.

And don't get me started on the total disregard for traffic laws. They are even worse than cyclists.

The thing that makes me laugh is all these "Greenies" who are so proud of their clean electric vehicles when they don't know or won't admit that the nice clean electricity coming out of the wall socket to charge their car is being pumped into the other end of the wire by a coal fired power station.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Actually, that is a whole other argument I have against the electric scooters and cars- I can actually see the stacks from the giant coal burning plant that powers my city.  Figuring that two thirds of people work during the day (or evening) and would therefore charge their cars/scooters overnight, and given there is just under a million people in my province.... if we all went "clean and green" and plugged in our cars overnight we may have choked by the next morning!   

I didn't mention that as there are other ways of generating power and I assumed my city was left in the Dark Ages by burning coal. Many other cities are powered by cleaner methods like nuclear, and I can see more of a point to electric transports in those places.

Def

[Nhoj]

I have not seen any of these scooters ever here. I don't live in a city though either. Also NY is fairly green with several nulcear powerplants, many wind turbines, and a massive chunk of the state (including me) gets their electricity from Niagra Falls. So I really don't know why I'm posting something here? I guess I'm bored.

[Chako]

Here in Ontario, they are required to have bicycle peddles attached for them to be legal without a license. The funny thing is that not only are they so darn slow, they are also doubly dangerous whenever they go around corners. I have seen a few drivers crash after one of these useless peddles hit the pavement.

I foresee the law changing sooner or later in regards to these things.

[jzmtl]

Lol, I know that feeling, took my bicycle around corner once a bit too fast and forgot to raise the inside peddle. It actually dug into the pavement and send the rear tire airborne, had me going holy smurf what was that, though luckily I didn't crash.

Interestingly I don't see them here, probably because Montreal is too highway reliant and these things aren't allowed there, and downtown is full of cops looking for ticket revenue.

[PTRSAK]

Ha ha... Was just reading my own post and could hear the start of it in Zoidberg's voice...



Bah. These scooters. A plague on the roads they are.

[Steinar]

I just want to address a misconception about petrol engines vs coal fired power plants: An electric vehicle powered by electricity generated from burning coal has still less emissions in total than a conventional combustion engine based vehicle. Electric engines have very high efficiency and the turbines in the power plant are more efficient than the cylinders in the cars, scooters and motor bikes. Coal power plants are A Very Bad Thing and I'm a big fan of the modern designs for nuclear plants, but it's in general better to have highly efficient 24/7 processes running at perfect temperature than starting and stopping cold equipment if you're freeing energy by burning something...

And don't get me started on Smurf bikers. I live in a university town...

[Grant Lamontagne]

You obviously have never seen anything run by Nova Scotia Power.  If Homer Simpson worked in a coal plant it would still be better than ours.   

Def

[Steinar]

And there you just noted why I'm slowly becoming disillusioned about nuclear... (There's just no sustainable alternative that I know of.) 

Sorry about topic drift, there are some subjects I just can't stay away from. (I tried to avoid mentioning sub-critical nuclear power plants and thorium plants and just failed.)

[Grant Lamontagne]

I wasn't talking about nuclear, I was talking about our coal plant.  I swear it's little more than a bunch of old rusty truck engines welded together.

Def

[Steinar]

I got that you were taking about your (crappy) coal plants, I just wanted to ride my hobby horse.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

In my experience the biggest flaw with electric scooters is there range. You do have to thrash them when riding in traffic to stay safe, and consequently drain the battery way faster than what the reviews state.

Due to my back, and now the arthritis in both my knees I bought a Peugeot Vox 110 to get me and my boy around, I had looked into the electric scooter option as I'm still a greenie, but there just too slow to be safe in modern traffic sadly IMO.

The Vox is only 2 weeks old with just 150 miles on it, but they've been mostly 2 up in strong headwinds with a combined weight of about 17 stone on board, and its still returning 156mpg with a tight motor!

All in all I still think its the greenest "practical'' transport for the money.

One day I can see myself getting an electric scooter, but the techs not quite there yet sadly imo

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[nuphoria]

Not seen them much around here yet, but people manage to drive like total idiots on every other form of transport, so I doubt there will be any exception for these!

As for no licence or insurance etc, that's just asking for trouble. Absolutely ridiculous that you can ride anything with any kind of non-human powered locomotion without being accountable for what you do in the road.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I got that you were taking about your (crappy) coal plants, I just wanted to ride my hobby horse.

I got that you got that I was talking about coal plants but that you wanted to talk about your hobby horse....

Which incidentally would be a better mode of transport than the way those idiots ride those damned electric scooters!



Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Chako]

I must add, in my city, I saw scooter herders prowling the snowy byways way before I saw my first motorcyclist. 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Proof that they compare unfavorably in the IQ department to canine fecal matter.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Syph007]

Grant Im not sure about your province, or maybe its the same, but in ontario it was supposed to be a pilot project to allow bicycles with electric motors to ride with other bicycles, and not need insurance or a license etc.

So.. what the chinese companies did, was make these things that look like vespas, but have stupid pedals on the bottom so they count as bicycles under the trial program.  Sneaky way for them to sell and market that crap here, and skirt around the intent of the law since those stupid electic pieces of crap dont look like bicycles.

Ive complained to the local police and they turn a blind eye.  They are a danger to themeselves and others.. yet I would get in trouble for hitting them.

[Whoey]

I may be biased because I worked for a wind power company, but I believe renewable sources are better. Coal and Nuclear are not very environmentally friendly. There are plenty of cleaner options like wind, solar, and hydro. While some will say they are not perfect, you are correct, but they are improving all the time, whereas coal is burning up a resource we will eventually run out of, and nuclear leaves behind a lot of waste we cannot dispose of properly... not to mention the risks of nuclear accidents.

As for the electric vehicles, they are definitely more efficient that their gas powered counterparts, as combustion engines are highly inefficient, although they have come a long way over the years. Hybrids using gas to run a smaller engine to charge the electrical system is a vastly improved idea, and should pave way to a much more efficient future...

As for driving unlicensed and uninsured, any vehicle that has a motor and travels on roadways should require some sort of each... even if a lesser drivers license and insurance vs normal vehicles (we have scooter licenses here). Aren't the governments always looking for new ways to bleed more money out of people? There's a source they haven't tapped yet.

[Chako]

My main problem with most electric vehicles..and even hybrids to an extent...their price negates any savings at the pump.

Sort of reminds me a few years ago of a sales pitch I heard at a home show. I could spend 25 grand on solar cells for my roof. In Ontario, you can't use the electricity you produce on your home. You are forced to sell it to the local hydro company. This guy told me that selling to the hydro was locked in at a set rate for the next 10 or so years. Great. Now, after doing some quick math in my head, I suddenly realized that I would only start to make money 25+ years down the road! Frankly, at those rates...what is the point? To be green? Do I like to get taken? Most folks figured this out quick as I haven't seen any increase in solar cells for roof installations.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I think they are avoiding licensing, taxing and registering these things until there are enough of them on the road.  Right now the big appeal of them is the low cost of ownership, and if that changed due to governmental involvement they would probably die off as people make the jump to more practical transports (gas powered scooters) or go back to taking the bus.  The government has to wait until these are prolific enough that they can turn a profit, and will probably start incrementally as accidents happen and make the news.

Def