Scooters Get a Second Chance

admin June 11, 2022

0 4 minutes read

When US companies began renting adult versions of infant plastic scooters in 2017, light vehicles were lightly used and often ridiculed to travel around the city. However, after five years and one pandemic, shared electric scooters have been reviewed and have a chance to fix their bad reputation.

Electric scooters may also provide a blueprint for shaping technology to meet our collective needs.

About five years ago, in some US cities such as San Francisco and San Diego, many young companies began offering electric scooters that could be rented on a minute-by-minute basis using a smartphone app.

Some people liked to use scooters for short trips around some parts of the city with heavy traffic.Officials and other residents saw the scooter company as follows: invader It was a product Invitation to qualified people Mow pedestrians or Garbage sidewalk On a parked scooter. The scooter repulsion was malicious.

But slowly, companies began working with cities to make scooters safer, more reliable, and less disliked.They also started testing new ideas, including automatic speed limits that some transportation experts want to see. Applies to carsthat too.

The new mode of movement cannot solve all transportation problems around the world, and scooters definitely have their drawbacks. However, rented electric scooters may eventually find their place in cities looking for solutions to traffic, pollution, road hazards, and public transport limitations.

And if scooters catch up, it’s because many US cities have done or couldn’t do with on-demand riders like Uber and Lyft.

“Are we still scooters?” Bloomberg News Heading I asked last month. Yes, but that’s not the way we used to do scooters in the past.

Officials in many cities have responded to complaints by intervening to control where and how scooters work. In many cities, the number of scooters available is limited, companies need to strengthen their liability insurance and are required to make scooters available in low-income areas.

In the Los Angeles area, scooters Built-in no-go zone Prevents people from using them in crowded areas such as the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Chicago Is one of the places where you need to lock your scooter to a fixed object such as a bike rack instead of keeping it everywhere.And New York Pledge-only lane A safer parking zone for those who ride bicycles and scooters.

Scooter companies have also responded to complaints about defective or short-lived scooters. Wayne Ting, CEO of scooter and bike rental company Lime, told me that many of the rented scooters were the same models that people bought for personal use. He said Lime is currently riding a 4th generation scooter designed to withstand repeated rental wear.

Pandemics have also changed people’s daily lives and disrupted public transport.Americans rent Owned electric scooter And a bicycle.

Not everyone wants a scooter, regardless of the changes.Some staff Including MiamiStates that scooters have no legitimate place and are at least temporarily banned.

Meanwhile, some of the proponents of car transportation alternatives are cities. Overreaction Insist on scooters that restrictions can make them Too troublesome May be used and support the current state of the car.

Perhaps most surprising of the 2022 scooter story is that it shows that private tech companies and governments can work together to bring new tech to the public good.

Seleta Reynolds, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, said he learned lessons from past regulatory mistakes that allowed taxi services to stagnate and prevent Uber and Lyft from dealing with ways to exacerbate traffic and pollution. Told me

“I’m laying the groundwork here to welcome new innovations,” Reynolds said. “The step forward in doing that is not to allow them to come in and do whatever they want to do.”

Reynolds said calls to the city’s public complaint line for scooters have diminished since the new rules came into force, and restrictions on the number of scooters in some parts of the Los Angeles area did not reduce passenger numbers. Her goal is to ensure that tech companies address the shortcomings of the service, while ensuring that city officials do not block the attractive driving alternatives that Los Angeles needs, she said. ..

According to Reynolds, the approach to scooters is a model of how Los Angeles is embracing future transportation technologies such as self-driving cars and flying cars.

Is scooter rental an attractive means of transportation for the masses? Economically viable business.. However, they may need as many private car replacements as possible to improve transportation and may require strict monitoring to ensure that the benefits outweigh the shortcomings. Indicates that there is sex.

Before going …

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Double-edged sword going online: MIT Technology Review I have written How Malaysian LGBTQ people used social media to communicate and defend their rights in countries where homosexuality is a crime. However, activists are also exposed to online threats, cyber attacks, government surveillance and prosecution. (A subscription may be required.)
Why are there so many gadget chargers and cords? !! The European Union needs phones, tablets, portable speakers, and many other electronic devices sold in 27 countries to use the same type of charger by 2024, my colleague. Adam Satariano reported. Laptops will be on the list by 2026.