E-scooters may displace bike share bikes e or otherwise?
Kids just want to go from A to B and latest e-scooters move along weaving off and on roads and pavements to avoid traffic lights etc.
Plus absolutely no effort required with no oily bits.
I still like bikes but have had customers looking at the cost of buying an e-scooter to add to transport mix rather than a bike (Lidl had). Lot cheaper and easy to store.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Electric scooters
(184 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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Why not walk? Better exercise
Posted 4 years ago # -
“Why not walk? Better exercise“
Answer in 5th word.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@LaidBack: have had customers looking at the cost of buying an e-scooter to add to transport mix
Are they not still currently illegal to use on public roads in the UK?
I know there was talk of changing that but AFAIK it hasn't happened yet.
AIUI the latest proposals would only make rented e-scooters road legal, though I haven't found any details about how they would have to be used i.e. on the carriageway only, or on the footway only, or on both. (TBH neither option would appeal to me as a potential user.)
@chdot: Agree 100%. They do look like the ideal toy for people who simply don't want to put in any effort at all*. At least with a road legal EAPC you do have to do some work (see for example my recent post about a very unscientific comparison between riding an e-bike and a normal bike on the same route).
* I realise that some people suffer from disabilities which mean that they can't put any effort in, but I struggle to imagine folks like that managing to use an e-scooter safely either.
Posted 4 years ago # -
If you think about all the people in flats who are not likely for an e-bike (too heavy for the stairs, too valuable to leave out), but a normal bike is too much effort, it feels like electric scooters could fill a huge niche. Also very easy to take on the train. For example, if I didn't feel like cycling all the way to my new work (30 mile round trip) I could scoot to the station then to the office. Many years ago I took my bike on the train for Fife commute, but it was always touch and go whether I'd get on. Not an option now I have kids and a hard schedule. (Actually thinking about whether I could inline skate. Problem is it takes 10 minutes to put them on!)
I don't really get why people are sniffy about the fact that you don't exercise. 99% of people are not interested in exercising all the time, so we should prefer them to have choices that are less destructive (especially with public transport on a pandemic downer).
Look at all the single occupancy cars queuing in town. Decades of trying to get people to change habits haven't had much impact. We're saying we prefer them to sit in cars than e-scooter because we don't like that they don't get a sweat on.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I was on that lovely wide pavement up at Firrhill this mnoringing that we are allowed to cycle on
With e-scooters
Are they for pavements, or roads or scooting on and off?
Like the roller skating idea
Also skateboarding? Or E-skateboarding
International Man of Mystery Jimmy D Once skied up the Lang Whang towards me when it was closed for repairs but bikes and skiers could get through
I see the e-scooter increases the range and accept the single occupancy vehicle argument
I would get up earlier and walk on fine days if I could not cycle
I ran down the roads during the last really cold winter with all the ice.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“We're saying we prefer them to sit in cars than e-scooter because we don't like that they don't get a sweat on.“
I don’t think too many people are thinking that.
When the scooter ‘craze’ started some years ago they seemed like a gimmicky toy (early ones weren’t cheap). But they soon got used for getting young children to school - plus accompanying pre-school ones too, so must have replaced some car journeys.
Adult users were relatively rare - with most looking self conscious.
Add a motor and somehow they are cool!
Allowing them on pavements at more than about 4mph would be a mistake.
On road not sure 10mph is ‘safe’.
There are different sorts of ‘lazy’ - avoiding exercise, but also sticking with the ‘I’ll drive because I can’t be bothered to think of the alternatives‘.
Electric bikes have moved some people from cars (at least some of the time) and helped people continue cycling, also got more people on two wheels.
I’m sure there’s data somewhere of who is using scooters and why, and also who might if they were legal.
Posted 4 years ago # -
One of my less mobile colleagues scoots to work, because walking is too painful. I'm not sure if cycling was considered as an option, but for them the scooter (top of the range one) is a mobility aid.
Otherwise, yes, most adults have appeared slightly sheepish, often when scooting a child's scooter home (and why wouldn't you!).
See also "Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosy... doesn't try it on."
Robert
Posted 4 years ago # -
I'm all for them. It's better for me if people don't drive, and I like the power of the scooter hire firms' political lobbying, which is pushing in the same direction as us. I see NYC this year legalised "ebikes and scooters", for example. They're no doubt pushing for better bike lanes too, for their scooting businesses.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I had a moment in Aldi mid-lockdown and came back with a kick scooter. Now I see the attraction of having a battery...
Posted 4 years ago # -
I got my non-electric kick-scooter several years ago when frustrated at being limited to feet when down at my parents'. My wife tries to always insist on referring disparagingly to adults' scooters as 'adult scooters' but it's the ideal thing for keeping up with a child on a scooter without having to run. I've only taken it the 3½ miles to work a few times but it was a perfectly viable operation, and I loaned it to my cross-desk colleague when he was considering such things and he later bought his own.
Posted 4 years ago # -
“
Rental e-scooters will be legal on UK streets from Saturday, the government has announced, in a move to improve the availability of coronavirus-proof alternatives to public transport.
But privately owned scooters, widely sold and used across the UK, will remain illegal, the government has said, due to the difficulty of regulating the devices, and the requirement on the part of scooter hire firms to provide insurance for riders.
“
Posted 4 years ago # -
Dangerous waters here...
Posted 4 years ago # -
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Brought to you by the team behind industry-leading cycle trade magazine BikeBiz – established in 1996 – MMB focuses on sustainable transport solutions, from e-bikes and e-scooters to bike-sharing and hire schemes.
“
https://www.bikebiz.com/biz-media-announces-launch-of-mmb/amp
Posted 4 years ago # -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53253194
Allowed motors up to 500W (so basically the peak power output of a top end pro cyclist)? Seems incompatible with a top speed of 15.5mph (and inconsistent with e-bike legislation)
Posted 4 years ago # -
From BBC link
“
Philip Darnton, director of the Bicycle Association, told politicians his group had no set view on e-scooters, because some of its members were fiercely against them while others sold them.
But he said that the power and weight allowed by the government went far beyond what was expected.
“
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yup, they've massively increased the limits because some company asked them to:
We have also increased the permitted vehicle mass from 35kg to 55kg and removed from the original definition that an e-scooter should have ‘no provision for seating’ in order to allow seated variants to participate where they comply with our other requirements.
Doesn't sound like a great idea to me.
Has anyone heard of anyone preparing for an actual trial? All I've seen so far is Lime saying nice things without any real plans.
Posted 4 years ago # -
55kg and 500w motors they're going to comparable to mopeds in performance.
Presumably the extra weight is for a massive battery with a big motor.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Since it's limited to 15.5mph, the greater power of the motor just means it can keep to the same speed up a steeper incline. 250W isn't enough for our e-bike to maintain 15.5mph on much of a hill. I have to add pedal power (probably bringing the total to 500W or more). So maybe that's roughly how they worked the math for a scooter, which you can't "top up" with legpower. Although I'd say the argument is more that the limit on e-bikes is too low, rather than scooters needing bigger engines.
It's funny, they aren't going about this the way I expected at all. Nobody is going to buy a 55kg electric scooter, or even a 35kg one, for mass modal shift. The hire ones, which have to be left out for many uses between charges, are presumably quite different. So the trial is really very much about how a hire-specific scooter fleet works, not private travel.
As they are allowed to have seats, it does beg the question what difference there is between a 55kg/500W seated scooter and an actual motorbike of the lightest class.
Posted 4 years ago # -
We were behind a scooter with a seat the other day. Looked a bit daft. Suppose could be folded?
Someone at work has an electric motorbike. Looks much better
Posted 4 years ago # -
Good point on the limit, but the acceleration of that big motor might be a bit much unless controlled. You can top up a regular scooter although I doubt its efficient.
I suspect the seats are going to be more like 3 in this list but the one at the top looks a lot like a small motorbike.
https://thegeniusreview.com/electric-scooters-with-seat-for-adults/
Posted 4 years ago # -
Story on shortly (then iPlayer)
Posted 4 years ago # -
‘Need driving licence’, apparently.
Didn’t realise that.
Posted 4 years ago # -
‘SGov not told it would be legal here’ (for hire companies).
But, ‘not expected soon’.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Can be a provisional licence Is think?
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yeah, details here from the horse's mouth.
Now I've skimmed it, feels like quite a tortuous way of running a trial. Instead of re-defining scooters along with e-bikes for a trial period, they are keeping them as motor vehicles but then modifying everything else (the meaning of road signs, the list of vehicles that can use bike lanes, the law on motorbike helmets, the law on registration, type approval, MOTs, etc) to exempt them. Yet the stated aim of a successful trial is to classify them with e-bikes... presumably undoing all of the above.
There are some interesting implications like the suggestion of using geofencing to restrict where you can ride your scooter (as featured in off the shelf drones which generally won't fly near airports), or how fast it will go in certain areas. If it exists and it's that easy, begs the question why it isn't in every new car ;-)
Posted 4 years ago # -
“
Fredrik Hjelm, CEO, Voi “Cities urgently need to give people more transport options to help them get around, as traffic is rapidly returning to UK streets. Voi is delighted that the UK now has legislation in place because not only are e-scooters better for the environment but they can also help people start to resume their normal lives. We acknowledge that it’s a huge task for councils and authorities to get the pilots up and running by the end of August, not least with all of the other challenges they face right now.”
“
https://www.micromobilitybiz.com/industry-reacts-to-uk-e-scooter-trials/amp/
Imagine a model where people weren’t allowed to own a car and had to hire them!
Posted 4 years ago # -
Imagine a model where people weren’t allowed to own a car and had to hire them!
This is the model that many companies (Uber/Google) actually want to go towards. Fleet ownership makes far more sense and people hire the cars when they need them. Hence the driverless aspect. Tesla is entirely the other way around - it wants everyone to own the car and that car to be available to do other trips in the times you don't need the car. Wrong way around really.
Posted 4 years ago # -
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UK car sales weakest since 1971
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Posted 4 years ago #
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