I am quite convinced they are not safe at all, independant from cars being around and even independent from good separated infrastructure. People falling with bikes tend to break wrists. People falling with scooters tend to break faces. (Both should wear helmets in area with very lacking infrastructure.) But the scooter fallers often fly forwards and don’t even manage to soften the blow with their arms, while most bicycle fallers often fall sideways and do something with their arms that’s softening the blow to the head. It mainly has to do with the size of the wheels, bigger wheels offer more stability and make you less likely to “fly”.
The e-scooter rentals weren’t banned in my town for being dangerous, they were banned because peole would just dump them in the middle of the side walk or in people’s yards. I lived on a busy corner and who often have 3+ scooters on the corner blocking the side walk. Now people
they were banned because peole would just dump them in the middle of the side walk or in people’s yards.
Our rentals “fixed” that issue by continuing to run the clock, so the customer would be charged more and more until they actually parked them in a designated area.
It’s a simple fix. Many pilot e-scooter programs didn’t account for this problem in the first year, but I would imagine most implemented this if the program was allowed the next year.
The solution we used in Stockholm for this problem was to make the e-scooter companies liable for incorrectly parked E-scooters - they now have to be parked in specific zones, and the rental companies get a fine if caught in violation of applicable rules.
As long as that highspeed traffic is segregated, e-scooters are fine. It is when they are mixed with slower moving bicycle traffic in bicycle specific lanes that it becomes a big problem. E-scooters masquerading as e-bikes (read: fat tire bikes like phatfour, etc), and e-bikes with the speed governor removed definitely do not belong in bicycle specific lanes.
Since this study was made by Chalmers, it’s likely referring to E-scooters under Swedish rules, where they will top out at 20 km/h. This is slow enough to be in bike lanes without any problems. It’s even significantly slower than many bicyclists riding in the bike lanes.
The real story here is that e-scooters are far safer than some try to paint them out to be.
And as always, that cars are still by far the most dangerous
I am quite convinced they are not safe at all, independant from cars being around and even independent from good separated infrastructure. People falling with bikes tend to break wrists. People falling with scooters tend to break faces. (Both should wear helmets in area with very lacking infrastructure.) But the scooter fallers often fly forwards and don’t even manage to soften the blow with their arms, while most bicycle fallers often fall sideways and do something with their arms that’s softening the blow to the head. It mainly has to do with the size of the wheels, bigger wheels offer more stability and make you less likely to “fly”.
The e-scooter rentals weren’t banned in my town for being dangerous, they were banned because peole would just dump them in the middle of the side walk or in people’s yards. I lived on a busy corner and who often have 3+ scooters on the corner blocking the side walk. Now people
Our rentals “fixed” that issue by continuing to run the clock, so the customer would be charged more and more until they actually parked them in a designated area.
It’s a simple fix. Many pilot e-scooter programs didn’t account for this problem in the first year, but I would imagine most implemented this if the program was allowed the next year.
The solution we used in Stockholm for this problem was to make the e-scooter companies liable for incorrectly parked E-scooters - they now have to be parked in specific zones, and the rental companies get a fine if caught in violation of applicable rules.
As long as that highspeed traffic is segregated, e-scooters are fine. It is when they are mixed with slower moving bicycle traffic in bicycle specific lanes that it becomes a big problem. E-scooters masquerading as e-bikes (read: fat tire bikes like phatfour, etc), and e-bikes with the speed governor removed definitely do not belong in bicycle specific lanes.
Since this study was made by Chalmers, it’s likely referring to E-scooters under Swedish rules, where they will top out at 20 km/h. This is slow enough to be in bike lanes without any problems. It’s even significantly slower than many bicyclists riding in the bike lanes.