In the news...

[Smoother]

OMG! you weren't kidding, that was, as you said, horrific

[Coffee guy]

I have no words for how awful this deliberate action is

[Smoother]

These two, unfortunately not isolated, incidents, highlight how vulnerable not car/van/truck road users are to the actions of others/

[LanghamP]

On 1/5/2019 at 5:45 PM, who_the said:

I'll post a link to it rather than embed, pretty disturbing: Here.

And here's the story: Four killed, 16 injured as truck crashes into motorbikes in Vietnam

Were these riders wearing helmets? (The inevitable question whenever a bicyclist gets injured.)

[Smoother]

8 hours ago, LanghamP said:

Were these riders wearing helmets? (The inevitable question whenever a bicyclist gets injured.)

They got flattened by a speeding truck, literally, that dragged some of them over 100 m. I wont watch it again, but I got the impression there were helmets present, mostly.

[Circuitmage]

In the news in Austin this week, they talked about how many e-scooters are being thrown into the water! It seems to be a big problem.

 

[RockyTop]

New PEV legislation in Denver. Post link

 

Edited January 10, 2019 by RockyTop

[travsformation]

Recently came across an article (published in the Spanish newspaper "El Periódico", original in Spanish here) that happens to be the first piece of neutral, non-stigmatising/accusatory news about PEVs I've read in Spanish media so far. I finally got round to translating it into English (the Google Translator version was mostly incomprehensible)

 

Electric scooters: don’t shoot the pianist

 

On the streets, people seem to insist on creating enemies, and PEVs have taken over the role bicycles used to play

Cars and motorbikes remain the main cause of accidents involving injuries, by far.

For 10 years, Barcelona has done nothing but talk trash about bicycles. They first broke into the scene in 2007 with the implementation of Bicing [public bicycle-sharing scheme], although a small and brave percentage of the population already used them as a means of transportation. Municipal traffic regulations allowed bicycles to ride on the sidewalk as they pleased. The growth of the cycling collective soon caused a predictable coexistence problem. The solution, nevertheless, was complex: forcing bikes to ride on the road, when there were hardly any bike lanes, was the equivalent of putting them in a lion’s cage with their body covered in wildebeest fat. Starting today, January 1, this collective will no longer be able to ride on the sidewalks, which will be reserved for the exclusive use of pedestrians, after more than 200 km of bicycle lanes have been painted on the asphalt. And just when it seemed like some kind of peace was about to set in,  electric scooters appeared on the scene, alongside the tragic death, in Esplugues, of a 92-year-old woman who was hit by one of these personal electric vehicles (PEV). They’ve become the new Lex Luthor of road safety. But if one looks into the causes, a wrong decision, inattention or lack of caution was at the source of that tragedy—as is the case in most accidents. It will be up to the judge to decide the scope of the crime. In any case, the e-scooter was only a vehicle being controlled by its rider. But if one were to generically blame someone and base their decision on statistics, the only thing that is certain is that dangers in the city take on other, much heavier, motorised forms.

The "social contract" often quoted by Manuel Haro, chief of the Local Police Force’s Accident Investigation Unit, refers to the unwritten agreement between all users who share local streets, sidewalks and walkways. The essence of that “social contract” is to consider prohibitions (stop lights, signposts, etc.) as an act of respect towards others. “I yield so that you can pass”. If one loses sight of that, ‘road karma’ breaks down. And when it’s badly torn is when disasters begin to arise. For that very reason, a great number of mobility experts don’t understand why local governments insist on blaming accidents on the use of old or outdated cars, when it’s been proven that human error is at the heart of the majority of accidents.

Haro has often complained about the "sectorisation" of mobility, and how the users of each means of transportation tend to defend only their own space and rights in a way that’s confrontational towards all other active members of roads and walkways. Seen from that perspective, electric scooters are deemed invaders in a gang war. “If we realised that we switch from our motorbike to a bus, from our car to our bicycle, from walking to rollerblading—if we quit grouping around and hiding behind specific vehicles—, perhaps we’d be able to organise ourselves more intelligently and share the same space in a civil and intelligent way”. That’s what local mobility regulations aim to achieve. Since the summer of 2017 they include a section devoted to PEVs, making Barcelona the first Spanish city to regulate said battery-operated devices. On a state level, the General Directorate of Traffic states: by decree, PEVs are not allowed to ride on sidewalks and cannot exceed 25 km/h. 

A pedestrian city

Coexistence on public roads and walkways is particularly complicated in a 100 km² (38 sq. miles) city that is among the most densely populated in Europe. That is, a great deal of movement occurs in a small space, and most commutes all coincide at the same time—rush hour.  The city’s Mediterranean climate also facilitates the use of “outdoor means of transportation” such as motorbikes, bicycles and PEVs (e-scooters, platforms, “Segways”, unicycles, etc.). Cyclists currently make up 3.3% of all urban displacements (more than 151,415 commutes on work days). Despite the fact that this is a low figure, it’s quite respectable if one takes into account that bicycles didn’t even appear on the chart a decade ago. Pedestrians remain kings, comprising 41.5% of all inner-city movements, followed by bus and subway users, and further down the list, cars and motorbikes.  This data provides a snapshot of the city’s mobility situation in which there’s no doubt, contrary to popular belief, that Barcelona is, above all, a “walking city”. And not only does that snapshot define Barcelona’s mobility: it also draws attention to a logical vulnerability: that of pedestrians, who make up the largest sector of commuters and are, at the same time, the most vulnerable.

In the Catalan capital there are more than 9,000 accidents involving injuries every year. That’s about 25 per day. When going over the data from the past three years, PEVs, as is to be expected, are nowhere to be seen. In January, Municipal Police usually publish an accident report for the previous year. For the very first time, personal electric vehicles will be included in the report for 2018, and authorities have yet to reach an agreement on whether they’ll be broken down into specific PEVs or treated as a whole. The latter case would surely contribute to their stigmatisation, which would undoubtedly be a slippery slope to go down. Bicycles have been under scrutiny for years, and analyses provide some perspective on the bad rap they’ve received for the past decade, which is now being relinquished to e-scooters. In 2017, 67 pedestrians were run over and seriously injured as a result. Among all the injured, two were hit by bicycles, while 23 were hit by cars and 19 by motorbikes.

Let’s take a look at the types of vehicles involved in the accidents. Of a total of 19,784 accidents, cars and motorbikes were involved in 15,000 of them, while bicycles amount to 871. In all instances, regardless of whether the party at fault was pedalling or behind a steering wheel, the cause of the accident was a wrong or careless decision. Perhaps that’s where the problem lies: our habit of analysing accidents as if they were “watertight compartments”, which does nothing but feed our perception of sectorised mobility. The fact that regulations aren’t enforced very strictly doesn't help either. And it’s not only the case with cyclists wearing headphones or PEVs riding on the sidewalk, but also with badly parked motorbikes, cars going 80 km/h on busy streets where the speed limit is 50 km/h, or taxis constantly disregarding the boundaries of their lane. In short, and I quote Chief Haro, “the respect that we demand of others when we feel we’re in a more vulnerable situation is the amount we should uphold when we’re the less vulnerable commuters”. It’s just a matter of attitude. 

Edited January 11, 2019 by travsformation

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, travsformation said:

Recently came across an article (published in the Spanish newspaper "El Periódico", original in Spanish here) that happens to be the first piece of neutral, non-stigmatising/accusatory news about PEVs I've read in Spanish media so far. I finally got round to translating it into English (the Google Translator version was mostly incomprehensible)

 

Electric scooters: don’t shoot the pianist

 

On the streets, people seem to insist on creating enemies, and PEVs have taken over the role bicycles used to play

Cars and motorbikes remain the main cause of accidents involving injuries, by far.

For 10 years, Barcelona has done nothing but talk trash about bicycles. They first broke into the scene in 2007 with the implementation of Bicing [public bicycle-sharing scheme], although a small and brave percentage of the population already used them as a means of transportation. Municipal traffic regulations allowed bicycles to ride on the sidewalk as they pleased. The growth of the cycling collective soon caused a predictable coexistence problem. The solution, nevertheless, was complex: forcing bikes to ride on the road, when there were hardly any bike lanes, was the equivalent of putting them in a lion’s cage with their body covered in wildebeest fat. Starting today, January 1, this collective will no longer be able to ride on the sidewalks, which will be reserved for the exclusive use of pedestrians, after more than 200 km of bicycle lanes have been painted on the asphalt. And just when it seemed like some kind of peace was about to set in,  electric scooters appeared on the scene, alongside the tragic death, in Esplugues, of a 92-year-old woman who was hit by one of these personal electric vehicles (PEV). They’ve become the new Lex Luthor of road safety. But if one looks into the causes, a wrong decision, inattention or lack of caution was at the source of that tragedy—as is the case in most accidents. It will be up to the judge to decide the scope of the crime. In any case, the e-scooter was only a vehicle being controlled by its rider. But if one were to generically blame someone and base their decision on statistics, the only thing that is certain is that dangers in the city take on other, much heavier, motorised forms.

The "social contract" often quoted by Manuel Haro, chief of the Local Police Force’s Accident Investigation Unit, refers to the unwritten agreement between all users who share local streets, sidewalks and walkways. The essence of that “social contract” is to consider prohibitions (stop lights, signposts, etc.) as an act of respect towards others. “I yield so that you can pass”. If one loses sight of that, ‘road karma’ breaks down. And when it’s badly torn is when disasters begin to arise. For that very reason, a great number of mobility experts don’t understand why local governments insist on blaming accidents on the use of old or outdated cars, when it’s been proven that human error is at the heart of the majority of accidents.

Haro has often complained about the "sectorisation" of mobility, and how the users of each means of transportation tend to defend only their own space and rights in a way that’s confrontational towards all other active members of roads and walkways. Seen from that perspective, electric scooters are deemed invaders in a gang war. “If we realised that we switch from our motorbike to a bus, from our car to our bicycle, from walking to rollerblading—if we quit grouping around and hiding behind specific vehicles—, perhaps we’d be able to organise ourselves more intelligently and share the same space in a civil and intelligent way”. That’s what local mobility regulations aim to achieve. Since the summer of 2017 they include a section devoted to PEVs, making Barcelona the first Spanish city to regulate said battery-operated devices. On a state level, the General Directorate of Traffic states: by decree, PEVs are not allowed to ride on sidewalks and cannot exceed 25 km/h. 

A pedestrian city

Coexistence on public roads and walkways is particularly complicated in a 100 km² (38 sq. miles) city that is among the most densely populated in Europe. That is, a great deal of movement occurs in a small space, and most commutes all coincide at the same time—rush hour.  The city’s Mediterranean climate also facilitates the use of “outdoor means of transportation” such as motorbikes, bicycles and PEVs (e-scooters, platforms, “Segways”, unicycles, etc.). Cyclists currently make up 3.3% of all urban displacements (more than 151,415 commutes on work days). Despite the fact that this is a low figure, it’s quite respectable if one takes into account that bicycles didn’t even appear on the chart a decade ago. Pedestrians remain kings, comprising 41.5% of all inner-city movements, followed by bus and subway users, and further down the list, cars and motorbikes.  This data provides a snapshot of the city’s mobility situation in which there’s no doubt, contrary to popular belief, that Barcelona is, above all, a “walking city”. And not only does that snapshot define Barcelona’s mobility: it also draws attention to a logical vulnerability: that of pedestrians, who make up the largest sector of commuters and are, at the same time, the most vulnerable.

In the Catalan capital there are more than 9,000 accidents involving injuries every year. That’s about 25 per day. When going over the data from the past three years, PEVs, as is to be expected, are nowhere to be seen. In January, Municipal Police usually publish an accident report for the previous year. For the very first time, personal electric vehicles will be included in the report for 2018, and authorities have yet to reach an agreement on whether they’ll be broken down into specific PEVs or treated as a whole. The latter case would surely contribute to their stigmatisation, which would undoubtedly be a slippery slope to go down. Bicycles have been under scrutiny for years, and analyses provide some perspective on the bad rap they’ve received for the past decade, which is now being relinquished to e-scooters. In 2017, 67 pedestrians were run over and seriously injured as a result. Among all the injured, two were hit by bicycles, while 23 were hit by cars and 19 by motorbikes.

Let’s take a look at the types of vehicles involved in the accidents. Of a total of 19,784 accidents, cars and motorbikes were involved in 15,000 of them, while bicycles amount to 871. In all instances, regardless of whether the party at fault was pedalling or behind a steering wheel, the cause of the accident was a wrong or careless decision. Perhaps that’s where the problem lies: our habit of analysing accidents as if they were “watertight compartments”, which does nothing but feed our perception of sectorised mobility. The fact that regulations aren’t enforced very strictly doesn't help either. And it’s not only the case with cyclists wearing headphones or PEVs riding on the sidewalk, but also with badly parked motorbikes, cars going 80 km/h on busy streets where the speed limit is 50 km/h, or taxis constantly disregarding the boundaries of their lane. In short, and I quote Chief Haro, “the respect that we demand of others when we feel we’re in a more vulnerable situation is the amount we should uphold when we’re the less vulnerable commuters”. It’s just a matter of attitude. 

Very interesting read.

It's interesting, one person is killed by an PEV and there's a push to ban all PEV's. Yet people are killed in large numbers by cars and there's no rush to ban cars.

[meepmeepmayer]

@travsformation Wow, you translated it yourself. Very nice, thank you!

[Dingfelder]

Chief Haro is a stud.

[travsformation]

6 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Very interesting read.

It's interesting, one person is killed by an PEV and there's a push to ban all PEV's. Yet people are killed in large numbers by cars and there's no rush to ban cars.

Yeah, the unbiased, broad-perspective approach is a refreshing change. Kudos to the journalist (I have a strong suspicion he doesn't drive to work)

We need more insiders with more balanced perspectives!

6 hours ago, meepmeepmayer said:

@travsformation Wow, you translated it yourself. Very nice, thank you!

You know what they say...if you want a job well done, gotta do it yourself! 

T'was nice to translate something that actually motivates me for a change, as opposed to banking reports, financial analyses, legal contracts, etc. It felt great to be adding keywords like EUC, PEV, e-scooter, etc. to my translation software's autosuggest dictionary (instead of stuff like "hereinafter referred to as", "company bylaws", "year-on-year growth" and similar legal and corporate jargon) 

2 hours ago, Dingfelder said:

Chief Haro is a stud.

 

 

[Smoother]

What I found interesting is the scooter rider was going 30kph (about 16mph) EDIT: ALTHOUGH HOW THIS WAS DETERMINED IS ANYONE'S GUESS. not terribly fast in the grand scheme of things.  Any cyclist on a decent bike can achieve this speed and knock someone down with the same amount of force, a runner too for that matter.  Of course we don't know how reckless, or not, the riding was.  But if one is travelling at 16mph close enough to pedestrians that you can knock one down, then some form of reckless was in play. Even if a pedestrian makes a sudden and unexpected move, one should not be close enough to make a collision inevitable. And a 92 year old is not likely to leap into your path.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Smoother

[LanghamP]

12 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

Yet people are killed in large numbers by cars and there's no rush to ban cars.

This NPR article that recently came out shows ever increasing pedestrian deaths.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/28/589453431/pedestrian-fatalities-remain-at-25-year-high-for-second-year-in-a-row

Note the quick and dramatic rise in the 2008-2009 which coincides with the widespread adoption of the iPhone and its ilk.

Amusingly, drivers prefer to blame pedestrians for distracted walking although the demographic most often killed by drivers is the very old, the very young, and poor minorities...all people who are not known for widespread smartphone usage.

To sum up:

--90% of vehicles sold in the US are trucks which punch through your head and chest instead of your legs like a car.

--States that legalized Marijuana usage saw a 16% increase in pedestrian deaths compared to states that did not. That's on top of the pedestrian death increase found in most states.

--Smartphone usage in autos that are already highly insulated with sound-deadening, wide crash-pillars that reduce visibility, higher vehicle sides that also reduce visibility.

--More people walking drunk and crossing outside intersections (this one I'm skeptical of, because observationally I think the deaths would have increased if pedestrians crossed at intersections. Instead, I look at the increase of 40 mph speed limits of which 9 out of 10 pedestrians will be killed instead of the 9 out of 10 survivors of a 20 mph collision).

My suggestion, of course, is simply ban all cars and trucks from the inner city except slow commercials which would have no parking restrictions, remove all parking lots, convert all roads into streets (like inner city Liepzig), and enforce a 20 mph limit simply by placing couches and flower pots randomly on roads and streets.

[winterwheel]

Scooters are coming to my town. The best thing about this is you have a big scooter company lobbying city council which in turn lobbies the provincial government to adjust the laws to support electric personal vehicles.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/electric-scooter-electric-bikes-edmonton-1.4993197

[Biped Phil]

I noticed a new and useful term today - in this article in the provincial newspaper:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/01/26/new-york-city-is-still-trying-figure-out-how-deal-with-e-bikes-scooters/

Quote

"...debating whether, or how, to legalize throttle-controlled e-bikes and scooters..."

That marks a notable advance in nomenclature.  An adjective raises suspicions.  The bigger the adjective, the deeper the suspicions.  Thus "self-balancing scooters" have been undeservedly at a disadvantage to "electric scooters" and "scooters" merely by virtue of the more meddlesome qualifier.  The appearance of the term "throttle-controlled scooters" in mainstream media levels the field.  Throttle-controlled is even the same number of syllables as self-balancing. 

[Circuitmage]

We have had our first documented death on a rented scooter last week;

http://www.kut.org/post/austin-records-first-traffic-death-involving-rented-scooter

"Police say <he> was riding a Lime scooter on the wrong side of the I-35 southbound frontage road at around 1 a.m. Friday near the on-ramp at Fifth Street. An Uber driver traveling in the right lane changed lanes and hit him. Police say the driver stayed on the scene and is cooperating."

Sad...but driving on the wrong side of an interstate frontage road...really?

[LanghamP]

5 hours ago, Circuitmage said:

We have had our first documented death on a rented scooter last week

Sad...but driving on the wrong side of an interstate frontage road...really?

There has been at least one other scooter death when a scooter rider got crushed by an SUV driver, I believe it was Washington.

This is the first scooter death in Austin; the previous four deaths were drivers.

He was killed on a stroad. Without any facts except geography, I'd guess he was eastbound on 5th on a 20 mph street, then turned left to the right hand lane (correct on a 2-way street) and got smashed by a car going 30 mph or greater (9 of 10 pedestrians are killed in such a collision).

Putting a highway in the middle of a city, with stoplights, and then fooling everybody by calling it a street isn't an accident; it's a statistical certainty for deaths. You want people to not die from slight errors. You want the car to hit him and break a leg, not kill him. If you have something in a city that kills you instantly, then that's probably a good indication to place said object in isolation so it doesn't kill people.

[Circuitmage]

Oh yeah...that's what I meant by "we"...just Austin.

It amazes me how many people drive these scooters on the main roads with traffic here. Technically they don't want them on the sidewalk, but there is no way I'm driving anything limited to 15mph that weighs less than 100# on a regular road. 

I see people all the time driving around corners on the street, I'm sure the actual number of accidents is in the 100's by now, either auto related or people just hurting themselves. Not to mention the guys on a Sat. night doing 3' jumps and stuff. I pitty the repair guy on these.

[Girth Brooks]

@Circuitmage that is natural selection at work my friend. Some are too dumb to survive long.

[Circuitmage]

@Girth Brooks darwinawards.com

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, Girth Brooks said:

@Circuitmage that is natural selection at work my friend. Some are too dumb to survive long.

The biggest killer of children is automobiles. The second biggest killer of children is guns.

These children were too dumb to survive for long. Just natural selection at work.

[Girth Brooks]

@LanghamP being fucking dumb enough to ride an electric scooter next to the interstate has nothing to do with any of this shit at all. Try again. At least have a great point to start an argument next time.

[LanghamP]

1 hour ago, Girth Brooks said:

@LanghamP being fucking dumb enough to ride an electric scooter next to the interstate has nothing to do with any of this shit at all. Try again. At least have a great point to start an argument next time.

People being killed by accidents for any reason is Darwinism at work.

If you are driving a car and someone kills you when they run the red light, it's your fault for not being in a big truck or being out on the road in the first place. Got shot? It's your own damned fault for not wearing a bullet proof vest. Killed while appropriately crossing a street but you were texting? Again, your fault. And indeed, in Hawaii if you are texting while appropriately crossing it is your fault.

When people say, "Darwinism" they essentially say the victim deserved to die, perhaps through being dumb, poor choices, or (most likely) simply not having enough time to figure things out.

This person who you think deserved to die was originally in a 20 mph street then made a left turn onto a high-speed road and was almost immediately killed. In the dark.

Is that deserving of a Darwin award?

In my opinion, poor road and street design will predictably result in fatalities.

Did you even go to Google Maps and look at the area in question before saying that person deserved to die? I did, because I don't think people deserve to die through accidents.

If you place 20 mph narrow streets adjacent to 45-55 mph one way roads, then what do you think it going to happen?

Fix the design so users don't die when they misjudge a situation for a few seconds. Turn that stroad into a 20 mph street or a 70 mph road, but do not attempt to do both. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by LanghamP

[Lutalo]

On 2/2/2019 at 8:01 PM, Biped Phil said:

I noticed a new and useful term today - in this article in the provincial newspaper:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2019/01/26/new-york-city-is-still-trying-figure-out-how-deal-with-e-bikes-scooters/

That marks a notable advance in nomenclature.  An adjective raises suspicions.  The bigger the adjective, the deeper the suspicions.  Thus "self-balancing scooters" have been undeservedly at a disadvantage to "electric scooters" and "scooters" merely by virtue of the more meddlesome qualifier.  The appearance of the term "throttle-controlled scooters" in mainstream media levels the field.  Throttle-controlled is even the same number of syllables as self-balancing. 

At least DC knows how to handle this situation; legalize them and let them roll; let them work. NY is bass ackwards on this. Crack down on food business delivery services? For what? Do it by harassing individuals trying to make an honest living so they can pay the exhorbitant rents for the shitty flats in which they most likely live. SMH!