Let’s talk about e scooters
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May 22, 2019 at 8:34 pm #1098709bentbike33Participant
@lordofthemark 190931 wrote:
So, will there be one or two of these placed on the 14th Street Bridge sidepath?
Yesterday on the ride home I passed an e-scootee at about 2/3rds of the way to the Virginia side who appeared to be dealing with a scooter that ran out of e-.
May 22, 2019 at 8:52 pm #1098763lordofthemarkParticipant@peterw_diy 190841 wrote:
The free weekly Alexandria Times this week pulled a hard 180 this week and published a piece sympathetic to scooters, focusing on new riders. It has nice bits about replacing car trips, reducing environmental impact, etc. — but I LOLed on this scooter apologist quote about Scofflaw Scooterists:
As if the riders who park the bikes badly and the residents who abuse the scooters wake up with a “let’s go do some crimes” mentality and, you know, it’s just a question of which large metallic object they were gonna block the sidewalk with. Ha!Yesterday evening, as I was riding down King from Beauregard to North Hampton, I saw one scooter rider riding on the sidewalk (west side of King) and five, count em, five cars blocking crosswalks (one the crosswalk at Beauregard on the east side of King, four at 28th and King, on the east side of King, two on each side of 28th) So, er, yeah.
May 23, 2019 at 2:04 am #1098768peterw_diyParticipant@lordofthemark 190933 wrote:
Yesterday evening, as I was riding down King from Beauregard to North Hampton, I saw one scooter rider riding on the sidewalk (west side of King) and five, count em, five cars blocking crosswalks (one the crosswalk at Beauregard on the east side of King, four at 28th and King, on the east side of King, two on each side of 28th) So, er, yeah.
Parked and blocking, or temporarily blocking with vehicle operators inside?
May 23, 2019 at 1:23 pm #1098774lordofthemarkParticipant@peterw_diy 190939 wrote:
Parked and blocking, or temporarily blocking with vehicle operators inside?
Temporarily blocking – but anyone trying to cross with the light would have had to go outside the crosswalk to get around. A friend of mine got hit by a truck that way, her bike was totaled, but by a miracle and good instincts she was not badly hurt.
But yeah, lots of people, both drivers and people engaged in the public discourse, don’t think that cars “temporarily” blocking a crosswalk is a big deal. Not as bad as someone putting one of those ugly scooters on their lawn. Feh.
May 24, 2019 at 1:00 am #1098784peterw_diyParticipant@lordofthemark 190945 wrote:
Temporarily blocking – but anyone trying to cross with the light would have had to go outside the crosswalk to get around.
Or wait. Radical suggestion, I know.
@lordofthemark 190945 wrote:A friend of mine got hit by a truck that way, her bike was totaled, but by a miracle and good instincts she was not badly hurt.
That sucks but TBH it sounds like she was partially at fault.
@lordofthemark 190945 wrote:But yeah, lots of people, both drivers and people engaged in the public discourse, don’t think that cars “temporarily” blocking a crosswalk is a big deal. Not as bad as someone putting one of those ugly scooters on their lawn. Feh.
For any motorist in the right lane where right on red is allowed, blocking the crosswalk is pretty much required to proceed safely. So yeah, it’s often not a big deal and is far more understandable than blocking right of way or littering private property with these rolling e-waste** contraptions, both of which are easily avoidable.
** $500 each and they don’t even last five months?
May 24, 2019 at 1:31 pm #1098790lordofthemarkParticipantOr wait. Radical suggestion, I know.
That sucks but TBH it sounds like she was partially at fault.
A. You can wait a very long time at some locations for a clear crosswalk (King and 28th being an example) Especially because the lights at 28th and King are set to enable traffic on King, so its a long time between walk phases across King. Assuming the sidewalk is not blocked the NEXT time you get a green across King. Its really not reasonable.
B. In any case lots of people won’t wait. If we are worried about safety, we need to deal with what people will actually do.
C. It nice to see blame put on the rider/pedestrian, rather than the driver who is actually in violation of the law.For any motorist in the right lane where right on red is allowed, blocking the crosswalk is pretty much required to proceed safely.
A. Or they could, as you said above, just wait. In this case just wait for a green to turn on.
B. In four of the five cases I was referring to, the cars were not attempting to turn on red. Just gridlocking the intersection with 28th
C. In the case where my friend was hit, there was no right on red issue, it was where a trail crossed a road. Again, they were just gridlocking, and ignoring the crosswalk.
D. Of course banning right on red at more locations is good for this very reason. I assume that has not been done at King and Beauregard to preserve auto LOS. And, ironically, because few pedestrians there. The whole intersection will be redone as part of the Alexandria Gateway project, I hope RTOR will be banned at that point. How RTOR on makes sense at a location where visibility requires blocking the crosswalk, I do not understand.So yeah, it’s often not a big deal and is far more understandable than blocking right of way or littering private property with these rolling e-waste** contraptions, both of which are easily avoidable.
There are plenty of options to improve scooter parking – including parking corrals at intersections (daylighting of which might help with the right on red problem above). Scooter companies are working on better scooters with longer service lives .
May 24, 2019 at 1:58 pm #1098792dasgehParticipant@peterw_diy 190959 wrote:
For any motorist in the right lane where right on red is allowed, blocking the crosswalk is pretty much required to proceed safely. So yeah, it’s often not a big deal and is far more understandable than blocking right of way or littering private property with these rolling e-waste** contraptions, both of which are easily avoidable.
The way I read the law, right on red requires a car to stop behind the stop line, and to not proceed beyond the stop line unless the drivers is sure it is safe to proceed. If the driver can’t see, that’s not permission to go beyond the stop line to look – they should be staying put until the can know it’s safe to proceed.
May 24, 2019 at 2:11 pm #1098793mstoneParticipant@dasgeh 190967 wrote:
The way I read the law, right on red requires a car to stop behind the stop line, and to not proceed beyond the stop line unless the drivers is sure it is safe to proceed. If the driver can’t see, that’s not permission to go beyond the stop line to look – they should be staying put until the can know it’s safe to proceed.
In my experience with the law as enforced, if you’re in a car and want to turn right you can do any damn thing you want because car.
May 24, 2019 at 2:15 pm #1098794dasgehParticipant@mstone 190968 wrote:
In my experience with the law as enforced, if you’re in a car and want to turn right you can do any damn thing you want because car.
Yes, because those doing the enforcing are almost always in cars.
May 25, 2019 at 3:47 am #1098806peterw_diyParticipant@dasgeh 190967 wrote:
The way I read the law, right on red requires a car to stop behind the stop line, and to not proceed beyond the stop line unless the drivers is sure it is safe to proceed. If the driver can’t see, that’s not permission to go beyond the stop line to look – they should be staying put until the can know it’s safe to proceed.
Which would mean that at many intersections with mere stop signs it would often not be legal to proceed due to poor sight lines. Shoot, there are intersections where even on a bike, without six feet of hood and dashboard in front of the rider, it’s difficult to check cross traffic from behind the stop line. It’s absurd to expect people to follow such laws.
Ken, thanks for the details. Yes, failing to respect the stop lines and crosswalks without RTOR is deplorable. And I’d like to see more intersections ban RTOR especially where sight lines are poor. The only reason I much like RTOR is that it allows cars with internal combustion engines to move sooner and burn less fuel, but hopefully electrics and hybrids will neutralize concerns about fuel waste when idling.
Dockless scooters though, they just suck. There are too many physical and economic challenges for those to ever be a decent option.
May 25, 2019 at 12:04 pm #1098807n18Participant@peterw_diy 190959 wrote:
@lordofthemark 190945 wrote:
Temporarily blocking – but anyone trying to cross with the light would have had to go outside the crosswalk to get around. A friend of mine got hit by a truck that way, her bike was totaled, but by a miracle and good instincts she was not badly hurt.
But yeah, lots of people, both drivers and people engaged in the public discourse, don’t think that cars “temporarily” blocking a crosswalk is a big deal. Not as bad as someone putting one of those ugly scooters on their lawn. Feh.
Or wait. Radical suggestion, I know.
Why can’t the car wait instead?
May 25, 2019 at 7:49 pm #1098823lordofthemarkParticipant@peterw_diy 190983 wrote:
Which would mean that at many intersections with mere stop signs it would often not be legal to proceed due to poor sight lines. Shoot, there are intersections where even on a bike, without six feet of hood and dashboard in front of the rider, it’s difficult to check cross traffic from behind the stop line. It’s absurd to expect people to follow such laws.
Ken, thanks for the details. Yes, failing to respect the stop lines and crosswalks without RTOR is deplorable. And I’d like to see more intersections ban RTOR especially where sight lines are poor. The only reason I much like RTOR is that it allows cars with internal combustion engines to move sooner and burn less fuel, but hopefully electrics and hybrids will neutralize concerns about fuel waste when idling.
Dockless scooters though, they just suck. There are too many physical and economic challenges for those to ever be a decent option.
I believe all the externalities of scooters can be remedied. In many cases the remedies are already available it’s just a matter of will. Far easier than remedies for the automobile. As for scooter company finances, that’s on the companies and their investors. Maybe they will work out, maybe they won’t. But meanwhile I will advocate for remedies, especially ones like bike lanes and parking corrals that daylight intersections that have other benefits. And I will oppose unfair criticism of scooters that appear to to criticize them for things we accept in autos.
May 25, 2019 at 7:55 pm #1098824lordofthemarkParticipantAs for stop sign only intersections they are different, as waiting for the green is not an option. Where visibility is poor, and there are conflicts between peds and right turning cars due to volumes of both, that argues for signaling precisely to solve that. King and Beauregard has a very large number of right turning vehicles and, for the west end, a high number of pedestrians.
May 25, 2019 at 7:58 pm #1098825lordofthemarkParticipantAs for the fuel usage justification, almost no other country has found that persuasive.
May 25, 2019 at 8:22 pm #1098826lordofthemarkParticipantAs for stop sign only intersections they are different, as waiting for the green is not an option. Where visibility is poor, and there are conflicts between peds and right turning cars due to volumes of both, that argues for signaling precisely to solve that. King and Beauregard has a very large number of right turning vehicles and, for the west end, a high number of pedestrians.
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