1097
Swap these please
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
1097 points (89.1% liked)
Fuck Cars
9570 readers
357 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
First of all, your Middle English grammar is atrocious, the 2nd-person possessive pronoun is "thine", not "thous't". "Thou'st"* is equivalent to the modern "you've", not "your", and "you've actions" doesn't make sense.
Second, what makes you think there will be fewer injuries with speed-limited scooters? Wouldn't you prefer they be fast enough to keep up with bike lane traffic so they don't have a reason to be on the sidewalks at all? An 8mph scooter can still knock you over, and the fall will be the cause of the bulk of your injuries in both an 8 and 15 mph collision.
I'm not saying that they deserve to be unregulated because they aren't cars, I'm mad that they're getting the attention of regulators in a way that doesn't actually make things safer, and districts from safety issues that really deserve attention.
You.
Also you.
I'll just let that raging hypocrisy sit there for you to bask in.
KE = mv^2 at least provides a reasonable hypothesis. On top of that, the injury rates are already so high that it's negligent public policy to not at least attempt it: peer reviewed academic study showing that in my city that they made up 15% of all ER visits
This presupposes that the only reason they're on the sidewalks is that they're too slow for the bike lanes... which presupposes anywhere a scooter rider wants to go has a bike lane in which to travel.
I'm empathetic. And I actually agree with you that if there is infrastructure (bike lanes) that are available, then go nuts. That's the beauty of GPS is that you could conceivably match speed limits to available infrastructure.
And I'd be fine with many alternative mechanisms... maybe you can get some training to understand how to safely ride at higher speeds on sidewalks? Ok. Maybe the scooters have a function to make more noise so pedestrians at least have a prayer of hearing some drunk idiot cruising up behind them? Maybe have a built-in breathalyzer you gotta use after 6pm if you wanna keep the top speeds unlocked?
I'm not unreasonable. I just don't want to get smoked AGAIN by some drunk asshole going March goddamn 3 on the sidewalk. My safety on a sidewalk shouldn't be up for negotiation. I think "we can't enforce any speed limit or else they'll be shut out of bike lanes" is an extreme conclusion to draw it a lot of big assumptions built into it.
Hey now, off-topic criticisms aren't bad faith, they're just bad humor, but I see how that might be misconstrued. I'm not trying to discredit your argument by changing the subject though, so I apologize for that
I think you make some good points about the availability of bike lanes, but I disagree that limiting the speed only where bike lanes are unavailable is a suitable middle ground. I don't think scooters should be allowed on sidewalks PERIOD. Anywhere I say bike lane, assume "street" if your setting doesn't have one. And the problem I see is that limiting their speed makes the sidewalk look more appealing than the street, which is my main concern. Scooters should not be available for rental in areas with only bike lanes and fast roads, since there's not really a good speed to limit them where they're both useful as a means of transportation and safe for nearby pedestrians. As for the privately owned scooters, increasing the penalties associated with their misuse and promoting public awareness of those penalties will do far more to keep them off sidewalks than to hope the manufacturers implement the proper GPS speed limits and anti-tamper systems.
I'm sorry a drunk scooter driver injured you and I agree that drunk scooter use should be prohibited by some means, but I don't know how you could attach a breathalyzer to a publicly used vehicle and expect people to put their mouths on it to blow. Drunkenness is a huge problem and our culture around alcohol is a major factor in allowing it to do as much harm as it does.
I think you and I generally agree that scooters are good, and generally agree there is room for improvement in their deployment.
I think we generally believe the speeds in which they operate should be appropriate for their contexts.
I'm pretty sure where our divides are, is just "what are the contexts", and "is prescriptive law enough?"
I don't think prescriptive law is enough.we can post speed limits, but they are broken. We can paint bike lane lines, and cars veer into them. Physical barriers are what keep cars out of bike lanes, not paint. GPS governors could keep motor vehicles driving the speed limits, not signs. Throwing violators in jail might be "justice", but that doesn't bring back the kid who was mowed down.
I also, despite having been smoked my scooter riders, don't NEED the sidewalks to be forbidden. If a scooter rider CHOOSES to use the sidewalk, I'm fine with that, AS LONG as they operate the scooter in a way appropriate for the context, and that does mean at a lower speed than on the road or bike lane. You're right, that if we just plain forbid their operation on the sidewalks then my concerns about pedestrians evaporate entirely, but I still think that's heavy handed.
Anyways, if there exists technology for a Tesla can more or less drive itself, I'm sure a scooter can know if it's on a sidewalk. In your world, it could maybe stop and force the rider to dismount because they're prohibited from that space, but I'm fine with it just being like "since you're on the sidewalk we're speed limiting you to 8mph"
I think you're right. I just hate it when bandaid solutions for failures of infrastructure are left as "good enough" when they should be treated as a way to buy time while long-term solutions like divided bike lanes, narrower roads with more speed tables, and public transit upgrades. The actual solutions are ignored when the bandaid solutions aren't themselves criticized, and without actual investment in public infrastructure we're never going to make our walkways actually totally safe.