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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ugh, PP, we get it -- cars are worse than scooters. Environmentally and in terms of harming people. Yes, I agree. But we live in a society that has designated a space for cars and the cars largely stay in that space.

Motorized scooters are a new addition and there's no safe place for them in the current infrastructure. They go too fast on sidewalks to be safe for pedestrians (and yes, people on scooters act entitled to have pedestrians move out of their way even though pedestrians are using the sidewalks as designed and shouldn't be expected to yield in that space). They are not fast enough for bike lanes, and of course it would not be safe for scooters to be in car lanes.

We went through this with bikes, too -- for a long time cyclists wanted to be able to use sidewalks because they didn't like being in the street with the cars (understandably). But pedestrians need a space that is just for them.

I'd support moves to ban cars from certain streets, increase taxes on cars and driving, and change the infrastructure focus away from cars and towards public transportation and alternative modes of transit. But none of that changes my opinion on scooters, which is that they are unsafe on sidewalks and endanger pedestrians.

Maybe if we created more carless streets, scooters could use the streets. Let's lobby for that instead. Keep them away from pedestrians who need to have safe walkways preserved.[/quote]

I'm 100% in favor of micromobility lanes. The solution is not to ban scooters, it's to create safe micromobility infrastructure.

The vast, vast, vast majority of pedestrians who are injured or killed in traffic are injured by drivers of cars. To say "drivers largely stay in the space designated for cars" ignores the people injured or killed when drivers go out of that car space, as well as the people injured or killed when people have to go into that car space.[/quote]

Yes, cars kill pedestrians. I hate cars. But 99.9% of drivers understand that pedestrians have right of way on sidewalks and in cross walks, and the vast majority of times, they observe that right of way.

Scooters don't. If you are on a scooter on a sidewalk and someone is walking slowly in front of you, you have zero right to ask that person to get out of your way, and you definitely don't have a right to expect that pedestrian to get out of your way without you even having to slow down. But people on scooters do this ALL THE TIME. Sidewalks are for pedestrians but scooters treat them like roads that people happen to walk in sometimes.

If you can't understand that this is an issue, even if it's not as big of an issue as cars, you aren't going to find a lot of allies among pedestrians. Cyclists tried this too -- there was a time when cyclists were trying to use the sidewalks as well, and laws got passed to prevent it because sidewalks are for pedestrians. Advocate for more multi-use bike/scooter lanes. But until they are there, don't expect pedestrians to welcome scooters onto the sidewalks.[/quote]

[b]Bicyclists can legally use the sidewalk in most places.[/b]  I do advocate for more multi-use lanes. I also recognize that people using all modes of transportation can be jerks, including people using scooters and people using bicycles. However, objectively, there is only one mode of transportation that is consistently lethal when its users are jerks, and that's cars/trucks. Let's focus on that.[/quote]

Most places? DC is the first city I've lived in that allows sidewalk cyclers. In every other city I've lived in, the sidewalks are full of people. [/quote]

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