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Incredibly bad look for this community.


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1 hour ago, LanghamP said:

And my personal experience is that I find riding the wrong way down a 1 way street and use sidewalks practically irresistible

I might do that too, but in France you must go 6 kph, it's a small fee to avoid "Four intersections, often more" ;)

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I think this chatter is slowing down so let me blow air to the coals of it.. :laughbounce2:

Now that we have all agreed that mostly bad behaviour with any kind of object that we can move forward, can lead accident with others, let's think about the design and how it affects people.

NYC has interesting design, considerably different to the people who comment here, angry to begin with. The way of behaviour is hard to understand until you have to fight for that space to begin with.

In your (European) country there are lanes and street design in place, and I mean walking/pedestrian road and cycling-lane or combination of such. In US there are "only" road or walking-lane design. And this seems to remain the design towards.

I 'think' and assume NYC was build mainly for automobile use on road by design. This is very common in USA. (You should do your own research) This effect is horrible to city that size and problems will arise. (air quality for one) NYC and all major cities undergo lots of efforts to change. Change is not easy when you have limited space to begin with. And then the public opinions of all ranges. I bet lot of the NYC roads had to be changed to one-way-streets and one(1) car-lane was given to 'bicycles' and such devices.

REALWORLD SOLUTIONS:
Keeping your car outskirts of the city could be part of solution. (Park car in parking zones with security and travel with public transport of your choice, EUC for one.)
Making some central areas only bus and taxi lanes only could solve some issues.
Changing some central areas off limits to private cars could solve some.
Changing some streets to one-way solves some problems with how to get lane for other than cars.
ONE WAY-lanes that allow cars travel ONE WAY, but bicycling both ways in own lane.
Roundabouts, yes these solve speed problems and keep traffic flowing without the need of traffic-lights.

Bicycling roadway infrastructure in USA is fairly rare, and in areas where they have such, property values are going _very high_, and climbing.
Funny enough such areas are in demand but general opinion of the citizens are against developing anything other than road for cars.
"More lanes, more lanes, for cars and big ugly parking lots to support this." And this is effort of lobbying such belief to the people. If you own any property in USA it would be your interest.. anyway moving on.

EUC are not the problem. Who can use em, this could be. Limiting who can buy could demand seller to check and register such device, this might become future solution. I do not try to push this as opinion, I just think this is could happen in some countries. I think EUC and personal electric vehicles are widely considered as solution to many problems there are to begin with. How people use em, will give tickets and punishment to that person not that class of vehicles. Limitation would be more likely than bans people talk about. Just my estimation nothing more to be clear. EUC are rare not unlike to be main solution for mass, so some category solutions are likely affection most users. We should care, we should lobby to get better influence to be heard. Get organized people! There are so many of you in every country. 

The real problems are:
To change 'we' worldwide would need better road design, that support this solution to begin with. Problem areas are narrow streets and general design flaws. 
When anyone can operate fast device and no licence requirements nor proven road rule knowledge, this sounds like trouble.
Last but not least, there are way smarter solutions for traffic in traffic-lights that would be important in order to make things flow better.

I would not be surprised, if in future "e-bicycles" and EUC need licence plate to identify, in clearly visible location. The speedtickets are income to most countries and that is beginning to change even more police work to desktop work. So overtime cameras are likely to arrive watching over bicycling lanes too.

 

Anyway last but not least, I would like to say that love builds things. Makes you creative and solves problems.

Where as anger, hate and fears tend to destroy and halt progress toward that better tomorrow.

And since most of you live in democratic countries, make sure you know what kind of solutions are the person you vote making in this regard and what partyline to begin with.

Edited by Tasku
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I think it's hilarious people are complaining about going an extra few blocks.  I have to pass over an interstate to get to the grocery store.  The  northern ped bridge is out for 9 months (being rebuilt & widened - it's 70 years old) so If I go to the next closest route, I end up on a road in 45-60mph traffic with no shoulder & highway entrances & exits that I have to cross.   The next closest ped crossing is south of where I need to go.  I go that way, cross UNDER the interstate in a tunnel/sidewalk, & head back north along a side road & head west on another side road & again north.

My 4 miles (6.4km) to the supermarket are now 10 miles (16km).  2 blocks extra?  Just ride the correct way down the street.  Who cares? 

Edited by /Dev/Null
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Hopefully NSW, Victoria et al will follow Queenslands example on Personal Mobility Devices. Seems very fair and sensible law; link below for details...

https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/rules/wheeled-devices/personal-mobility-devices

Unfortunately all laws in the UK seem to take forever to be enacted...but it will happen. I'm not sure of the situation in England but in Scotland many towns and cities have reduced their speed limit to 20MPH in most streets (but not all) in built up areas. Part of this is for CO2/sound emissions etc but also the Scottish Government wants to encourage the use and uptake of bikes, scooters etc, reducing the speed limit makes driving a car less attractive whilst making the roads safer for everyone else. 

 

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2 minutes ago, /Dev/Null said:

I think it's hilarious people are complaining about going an extra few blocks.  I have to pass over an interstate to get to the grocery store.  The  northern ped bridge is out so I end up in 45-60mph traffic with no shoulder & highway entrances & exits if I try to go the most direct route.   The next closest ped crossing is south of where I need to go.  I go that way, cross UNDER the interstate in a tunnel/sidewalk, & head back north.

My 4 miles (6.4km) to the supermarket are now 10 miles (16km).  2 blocks extra?  Just ride the right way down the street.  Who cares? 

Do you prefer transportation designed at automobile scales over "everything else"?

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2 hours ago, Gasmantle said:

Well it's idiots with that mentality that are the problem.

I'm not an idiot. I'm a lazy idiot. Why should I even follow laws that weren't designed for me, and were indeed designed specifically against me?

I'm a lazy idiot, so that's my excuse. You seem highly emotional. Why?

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52 minutes ago, Tasku said:

NYC has interesting design, considerably different to the people who comment here, angry to begin with. The way of behaviour is hard to understand until you have to fight for that space to begin with.

I've never been to NYC but from what I have seen it seems very similar to London in rush hour to me. I stand to be corrected.

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12 minutes ago, Planemo said:

I've never been to NYC but from what I have seen it seems very similar to London in rush hour to me. I stand to be corrected.

NYC is one of the more difficult dense cities to walk around in that I've visited (and biked), because NYC sidewalks are much narrower than, say, Berlin or Leipzig, plus most bike lanes will be blocked most of the time by parked cars, cops, or delivery vehicles.

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2 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

The whole piece reminded me a little bit of a Zen Koan.

That might be what you get for reading messages, from someone unicycling everyday, all day long. 
 

And to further sidetrack this topic with e-scooter chatter from UK..

Can someone from UK explain something?
Can some explain this "6-points to" licence thing in UK? How does points thing with licence work over there?
FYI: Riding private owned e-scooter is illegal in England. They only allow rental scooters legally. But what does the points penalty mean?

Seems there is a fight for the public opinion over there. How the rental business is supposed to be better over privately owned? I do not understand. In here the general opinion is the other way around. Private owned devices are 'OK'. and rental scoots are annoying everyone with multiple problems involved. One being that they block the roads, as the users care very little where they leave them.

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56 minutes ago, Tasku said:

 How the rental business is supposed to be better over privately owned? I do not understand. In here the general opinion is the other way around. Private owned devices are 'OK'. and rental scoots are annoying everyone with multiple problems involved. One being that they block the roads, as the users care very little where they leave them.

My guess is the thinking behind it is that the hiring company will have some kind of all encompassing insurance and will be held responsible for the vehicles roadworthiness etc, I think the hired scooters are also fitted with tracking devices which ought to facilitate tracing in the event of an accident.

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10 minutes ago, Gasmantle said:

My guess is the thinking behind it is that the hiring company will have some kind of all encompassing insurance and will be held responsible for the vehicles roadworthiness etc, I think the hired scooters are also fitted with tracking devices which ought to facilitate tracing in the event of an accident.

That's true. I forgot to mention that and it's quite important.

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28 minutes ago, mike_bike_kite said:

You get penalty points on your license for driving offences like speeding

Do you need a drivers license to rent a scooter? If so then the points make sense. If you don't need a license then it is unclear to me why scooter violations can be punished with points on a license which isn't even required. If I understand correctly, you don't need a license for bicycles in UK and you can get fined for bicycle violations, but not get points (you can be disqualified from driving cars, however).

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1 hour ago, Gasmantle said:

My guess is the thinking behind it is that the hiring company will have some kind of all encompassing insurance and will be held responsible for the vehicles roadworthiness etc, I think the hired scooters are also fitted with tracking devices which ought to facilitate tracing in the event of an accident.

I wonder if an EUC loophole exists there. Say instead of selling you your EUC, you technically rent it on a yearly basis from say speedyfeet, who also insures them. Initially you pay full price, and then yearly after that just enough to cover the insurance premium. If you ever stop renting it, you technically have to send it back to Ian but this will be unenforced, since you paid full price. Of course you won’t be road legal anymore. 

I’m not familiar with the fine print at all and I’m sure someone will chime in to tell me how this is not possible. 

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10 minutes ago, shellac said:

I wonder if an EUC loophole exists there. Say instead of selling you your EUC, you technically rent it on a yearly basis from say speedyfeet, who also insures them. Initially you pay full price, and then yearly after that just enough to cover the insurance premium. If you ever stop renting it, you technically have to send it back to Ian but this will be unenforced, since you paid full price. Of course you won’t be road legal anymore. 

I’m not familiar with the fine print at all and I’m sure someone will chime in to tell me how this is not possible. 

The problem is that EUC's are illegal (in the UK) and because of this they can't be insured, Escooters on the other hand are legal (for a trial period) and therefore can be insured.

I'd like to think the present system of temporarily legalising Escooters provided they are hired from an approved source is to test the water and gauge public opinion. Hopefully if the court of public opinion approves of them it may lead to the legalisation of privately owned vehicles subject to insurance, registration etc. Whether that actually happens only time will tell.

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You guys have it backwards. Gentle riding forever small numbers of casual riders will never cause places where wheels are currently illegal to reassess this. Never never never. Not a chance. Polite acquiescence never got a law changed anywhere.

What will change their minds is when large numbers of riders appear in some communities, so many that other communities feel silly for having archaic rules in place. For me it's the same as the transition from horses to cars. Communities could pass any the laws they liked against motor vehicles, change was coming regardless.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/today-in-tech/day-horse-lost-job/

 

 

Edited by winterwheel
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That's interesting, unlike many of our countries Finland understands electric unicycles and specifically requires them to have insurance if the maximum speed is 25 km/h or the motor power exceeds 1kw. If I lived there I'd buy insurance and ride without the stress of being a lawbreaker.

 

Edited by winterwheel
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1 hour ago, winterwheel said:

That's interesting, unlike many of our countries Finland understands electric unicycles and specifically requires them to have insurance if the maximum speed is 25 km/h or the motor power exceeds 1kw. If I lived there I'd buy insurance and ride without the stress of being a lawbreaker.

No insurance available though, since the vehicle should be registered as a moped if the top speed is higher than 25km/h, which the vehicle registry agency won’t do of course.

 One insurance company did however offer a petrol motor ATV insurance (for a non-motor vehicle!!!) to one guy who asked. Over 80€ per month (1000€/year), no off months, needs to get an official end of use document if sold or destroyed, and still not legal on public roads. Simply offensive on so many accounts. Fast e-bike insurance doesn’t apply, since they are registered as mopeds.

Something needs to change, but at least we are still allowed to ride. Kind of.

Edited by mrelwood
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Not sure where I saw it, but someone mentioned that Progressive Insurance offered policies for Segways. Perfect! Went to the site and sure enough there was a link for Segways. Once I clicked it specific models came up and I could go no further. Called Progressive, explained what I was trying to insure and after being placed on hold I was told hell no... it was more polite, but same sentiment. 

Loss on the surface, but offers hope that vehicles with no government registration and same operating capacities can be insured. 

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I looked at insurance, US company Progressive will insure Segways for 6000 dollars a year. 
 

 

I have yet to hear or see an apology or any amount of contrition. I doubt we will.  This also means the NYC boyz don’t believe they did anything wrong. Very telling.

 

We’ve all snickered at people ruining their 3000 buck EUCs in Cut-out tunnel. I think it is beyond stupid, but they are only risking their own lives and rydez. 
 

Going on highways and “passenger cars only” roads in NYC is risky and against the Law. I’ve seen people get hurt. The body of an EUC rider can penetrate a windshield and kill drivers and passengers. 

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