To think the Escooter company/companies should bear some responsibility?

[Keyansier]

For contributing to towns looking so tatty lately? I can't be the only person who has noticed absolutely loads of Escooters just randomly dumped in the streets. I know that's the point of them and they eventually get picked up but there's loads of them and it makes us look like a third world country or the wild wild west or something. AIBU to think they should have to pay some sort of compensation to someone (perhaps local councils) for us public to have to put up with having to look at it? I'm not sure if it's one company or multiple but it/all should bear responsibility.

YABU for your use of 'third world'. It's outdated and insulting considering it's always used in a way to describe something unsavoury.

Sincerely, someone from a developing country.

If they legalised privately owned ones then they would be stored in safer places and we’d need fewer of these company owned ones. People leave them scattered like this because the scooters don’t belong to them.

it makes us look like a third world country

Get an education, OP.

I stopped reading at third world country- as that's just not used anymore (and is offensive) and read OPs posts if she later said anything to correct it. Not a thing. Fuck you OP.

It’s quite irritating that so many people want to shut down a conversation about escooters with ‘well cars are far worse’.

There are problems with how escooters are just left in utterly stupid places in many cities. Of course the companies should be responsible for ensuring they’re parked reasonably. It’s not merely about them being ‘unsightly’; you might not have trouble navigating around them abandoned in the middle of pavements but lots of people do.

yes people park cars terribly. And that is a problem too. But there aren’t generally a bunch of hiring companies whose property those badly parked cars are, and who require licenses to operate that can be revoked if their business model enables antisocial behaviour. Different issues.

The key thing is that there is a company behind this making money who should be ensuring they’re behaving in a socially responsible way.

I was in Rome recently and it was the same. They looked really heavy and they were Just kind of dumped where the person got off and laying on the pavement sometimes half on the road. I even mentioned to DH about how strange it was there were scooters just abandoned all over the place. It seems dangerous, looked tatty etc

So just so I understand it, is it because the electricity gas just run out?
Is there no warning it's going to run out giving the user time to set the scooter to the side of the pavement, maybe even set against a wall rather than lay strewn across the pavement?

I've actually often thought this. Fewer parked cars cluttering up the street is one of the advantages I'm looking forward to, if self-driving taxis replace personal car ownership.

Compensation for looking at e scooters? I've heard it all now.

Maybe get counselling for the trauma it's causing you OP!

Yes, cars are worse. But as someone who predominantly cycles or walks, it really fucks me off when dozens of escooters are left completely blocking cycle paths and pedestrian access, which happens all the time with the Voi scooters in Bristol as mentioned by a PP. The company themselves seem to perceive bike paths as legitimate parking for them and will neatly line up 10 or 20 of the bloody things across the way.

'Third world' analogy is hyperbolic and offensive though.

There are no advantages, but your ridiculous reaction to having to "look" at them is unbelievable.

I get upset by seeing homeless people, reduced to begging, you get upset by lonely e scooters?

No, just Marty’s hover board.

Sudocrem - I find it equally irritating that people pick on alternative models of transport to cars and call them a menace, without seeing the bigger picture. We need to get away from this car centric way of life - in cities. Its annoying they get dumped everywhere but over all cars are far more hazardous to me in my everyday life. We should be embracing new modes of transport, move with the times.

I've not noticed this but someone should totally make an escooter version of The Magnificent Seven.

And High Noon.

Well… given that I don’t have a car and could count the number of times I’ve been in someone else’s in the last year on one hand, I still don’t see the relevance of cars to the issue that escooters are often abandoned all over the place. Indeed, as a PP notes this actually makes it harder for all the people not living a car centric life by cycling or walking to get anywhere.

Criticism of other forms if transport is not necessarily a pro car position. It may actually be about ensuring those alternatives are viable long term. In this case the answer isn’t no escooters (or shouldn’t be). It’s companies being responsible and providing much better parking solutions for them so that pedestrians and cyclists can use the footpaths.

The random dumping is a trip hazard for the visually impaired, mobility scooters... but what's the solution? I suspect that car drivers won't be happy if some car parking spots became E-scooters only spots.

Sudocrem, I agree there should be much more space given over to scooter and bike parking. Cities need a redesign. But as a pedestrian and cyclist, I am not impacted by these scattered scooters, because they are relatively small.

I agree that cars are a bigger menace and eye sore. Two places that I can think off the top of my head just ruined by just being turned into a through road for cars and all the filth they create: Reigate and Florence.

Also YABU because I can never find a scooter in the city centre when I want one

I do agree that ‘looking tatty’ is not the biggest issue. And the ‘third world’ reference is ludicrous.

But I did also have to move one left dangerously in the middle of the pavement that was making it hard for the school kids to get to the pedestrian crossing. And that’s a pretty common occurrence around here. People using the scooters just abandon them and don’t think about whether it’s an acceptable place to leave a scooter.

Its not that they run out of power or credit necessarily. It’s that they’ve decided the more escooter journey is done and just leave it where they stop. Like if you just stopped your car in the middle of the road and left it there, rather than using the accepted parking arrangements (and YES I KNOW people park like arseholes but at least there are designated places for parking and general rules about what parking is for cars, even if some arseholes don’t follow them). With escooters there no proper parking infrastructure and people do just leave them in weird places.

It’s worse than people leaving bikes all over the place most because people need to secure their bike to something so they don’t just stop and drop it where they stand, then walk away (like my toddler tries to do when he takes his coat off). They’re at least secured to something at the edge of things. Mostly. People don’t own the escooters and aren’t securing them. They just leave them - like the aforementioned toddler with his coat.

I think that the existing car parking infrastructure should most definitely have to cater for escooters. Yes.

I think, long term, the fact is that drivers are just going to be increasingly unhappy.

Of course, the government needs to do all the work to ensure that the alternatives to driving are viable, not just making driving harder and more expensive.

Not the wild west. The Wild Wild West, you know that film with Will Smith, scooters everywhere!

Making driving harder and more expensive is a great start!

Do these e-scooter schemes do have to be licensed now by the Local Authorities? I wonder if the Equalities Impact Assessments said anything about the effects of the 'dumping' of scooters on footpaths on people with disabilities and older people?

Imagine not being able to navigate the footpath into a hospital. (I think it was @PickAChew who pointed that one out.) That's crap.

We also see far too many youngsters on them without any form of protective clothing at all, weaving in and out of heavy traffic. Not even gloves or a helmet. It's so dangerous for them. Also lots of people ride them on pavements, which puts pedestrians at risk. It's apparently up to the police to enforce the rules, but there are no police undertaking this part of the 'crime matrix' here.

I'm on the fence about e-scooters, because I can't stand all the jumbo cars and engine idling and pollution and road rage in my city either, and I kind of hope there's a way where e-scooter schemes can be made safe and socially acceptable.

I haven’t, no. There are a few in central London, but they tend to be quite neatly parked; the operators require them to be left out of the way, and ask you to take a picture to show where it’s been left.

They aren’t “littering” the streets in most cases, they are parked for people to use to get around, which is the whole point of them; you find them near to where you are and leave them at your destination.