Reply to DC Scooter Ban! Members of the D.C. Council introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban....

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That was on the news last night but so far not much reporting on it so it is hard to find details, here is one of the better ones:
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/DC-Bill-Would-Ban-Scooter-Use-During-Overnight-Hours-511816831.html

Members of the D.C. Council introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban people from riding electric scooters in the city from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., create speed restrictions and require scooter companies to follow more rules.
Council member Mary M. Cheh along with council members Charles Allen, Brianne Nadeau and Jack Evans introduced the “Electric Mobility Device Amendment Act of 2019.”
The proposal includes the following:
[b]Requiring operators to maintain a 24-hour toll-free phone number for members of the public to report illegally parked scooters
Mandating that operators move illegally parked scooters within three hours of receiving a complaint[/b]
Banning scooter use between the hours of 10:00pm and 4:00am
Requiring operators to pay a bond to the District that will be used to pay for any damage their devices cause to public property
Requiring operators to maintain at least 10% of its fleet in each Ward by 6:00 am
Increasing the scooter speed limit to 15 miles per hour on the street or bike line and [b]reducing the speed limit to 6 miles per hour while operating on the sidewalk[/b]
Setting the electric bicycle speed limit to 20 miles per hour on the street;
Requiring operators to release fleet, trip, and complaint data to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT)
Giving the DDDOT Director the ability to suspend permits of operators who are not abiding by the law and provide the agency with the authority to fine operators who have been the subject of a disproportionate amount of complaints
[b]Requiring DDOT to construct signage and/or pavement markings to identify the Central Business District[/b]
Establishes a parking pilot to create electric scooter exclusive parking locations.[/quote]

I really like the bolded.  Bikes and e-scooters are generally not permitted on the sidewalk in the CBD, and I'd love to see more people getting ticketed for that.  It's just not safe to be on the sidewalk in a pedestrian-heavy area, and the speed limits are low enough (and traffic is slow enough) that they can ride in the street.  And if they can get people to stop leaving scooters in the middle of the damn sidewalk, that would be amazing.  Making the companies on the hook for it will likely cause them to enforce the restrictions on riders--if they get a call about a scooter you left in the middle of the sidewalk, you get dinged an extra fee or something.  Those things are a nuisance, and can be a real problem to people in wheelchairs, using walkers, the blind, etc.

I'm guessing the 10-4 ban is about intoxicated operators?  Or is it that visibility is limited so they are less safe?  I'm not clear on the rationale.  [/quote]

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