Did any one else have problems with people riding around on those Scooters? My friend and I damn near got ran into three times during the Con on the side walk. They're nice to have around if you don't feel like walking but people really need to be considerate of others that are using the side walk too. :-/
They're a menace and technically it's illegal for them to be ridden on the sidewalk in Indianapolis. They need to be ridden on the street following all applicable traffic laws.
If only the police would enforce this. Not long ago a young woman in London was killed by an irresponsible scooter rider.
We had similar experiences. Unfortunately, the city's interest in regulating then seems limited to enforcing fees on the companies that provide them. Once the check clears, the city's interest wanes until next year.
My biggest issue with the scooters was people leaving them in the walkways to hotels and on the sidewalks in such a way that made people walk around them. I thought they were pretty dang annoying
As someone who tried the scooters, I thought they were pretty awesome.
Several times I saw people riding them just drive into a crosswalk without braking or caring whether people or cars were there. They are accidents waiting to happen.
Not all of us were maniacs. Some were wise and would say "Passing on your left" and other just notifications. We'd also attempt to use the Bike Lanes (allowed per the sheriff I asked). But allow me to state that if you think that them being on the sidewalk was unsafe, riding them on the streets - it felt an awful lot like the drivers wanted to get the bonus points for plastering the scooter riders into parked cars.
The road conditions were horrible for such small wheels, each pothole and bad patch job was a chance to face plant. The sidewalks were sometimes crowded and would make it impossible to get through. The drivers wanted to see scooter paste. It was a sub-optimal use case. But, as identified by Yog-Sothoth above, it was still a ton of fun.
Sooooo many drivers get actually furious (not pretend internet furious) when anything other than a god-given automobile is on the street. I'm not sure how those scooters are going to work out. On the one hand, it's great to see more people outside of cars. On the other, I'd rather see them on bikes, or being kept only in bike lanes/streets, and off the sidewalks. I'm not really convinced the scooter riders are more vulnerable than cyclists--maybe even less so. But there will be some growing pains adding them to the mix, for sure.
If the scooter-riders are getting on the road then they need to remember they will lose any conflict with a moving car. Injury-wise. I have never thought an insurance company would pay out enough money to make it worth-wile to seek such a losing proposition but some do.
Then again I grew up in Memphis and well Memphis has a reputation for terrible drivers. I would be surprised to discover if some place else has a higher kill count on Bicyclists than we do.