Riding an electric scooter in a busy metropolitan area

Today I went on a 40 minute ride through a busy metropolitan area. This post is a report of my experience and impressions.

As someone who has a lot of experience bicycling in a busy metropolitan area I feel the bicycling experience is definitely helpful. While riding through the city I felt in a similar mindset to bicycling only more cautious.

Having bicycled a lot in Europe where people are a lot more regular in their bicycling patterns, and then seeing people being very erratic and disruptive in America, I understand about the responsibility when one is on a roadway no matter what they’re doing: driving, walking, bicycling. In general, in America people are a lot less responsible. I see pedestrians doing absolutely crazy thing like jutting out into the middle of a road, not in a crosswalk, in front of oncoming bicycles. I’ve seen motorists who literally tried to attack bicyclists just for being on a road. And of course then there’s the black PR shit against bicycling that I have absolutely no doubt is occurring and is fueled by certain “interests” who don’t want people bicycling on roads and want to keep everyone dependent upon and addicted to fossil fuel-based transportation.

Riding an electric scooter is very similar to riding a bicycle. But while one may be inclined to bend rules sometimes on a bicycle for example crossing an intersection before a light has turned green or slowing through a stop, my impression is that doing something like this on an electric scooter is potentially worse because they are not as maneuverable and cannot stop as fast. If a collision between a pedestrian and an electric scooter were to occur it would not be good.

No doubt such collisions are going to occur and no doubt there’s going to be a massive amount of black PR to try to kill electric scooters. That is my prediction. Watch.

While riding the scooter I mostly rode in dedicated bicycle lanes and it was ok. I mostly did not try to cut around vehicles when stopped at lights – I just stayed in order behind the vehicle in front of me – and I recommend doing this because it seems like a more responsible way to use a scooter. However there may be conditions where it’s safe to nudge past vehicles at a stop light. I did cut around one bus that had been stopped and was loading passengers at a stop light and not sure if I should have or not.

At one point I was in a dedicated bicycle lane and there was a bicyclist in front of me. We were going downhill slightly and her speed was slightly higher than mine so I pretty much stayed behind her.  I think it’s better to relax a bit and stay behind people in front of you instead of getting into a competition and trying to pass them.  On a bicycle this might be acceptable, but on an electric scooter less so.

There were some very steep streets I went up and the speed of the scooter slowed down to that of a person walking and I felt that it was a lot better to go on the sidewalk at that point. There are definitely situations where it is better for an electric scooter to be on a sidewalk. Going up a steep hill is the most important one. But there definitely could be road conditions where it’s not safe for an electric scooter to be on the road contending with motor vehicles. If it is an area where there are no or only very few pedestrians on sidewalks then it shouldn’t be a problem. However it’s important to be aware that if you’re passing doorways someone could walk out of one onto the sidewalk very suddenly, so you have to be very careful and ready to break at any moment.

You can control the speed of an electric scooter so it makes sense to be reasonable, try to be patient, try to take it slow and just be vigilant.

Electric scooters are not that different than bicycles and as far as riding one safely goes, there’s a lot of similarity in terms of behavior. Again, the most important things are to be respectful, be patient and take it slow, and always be vigilant.

If they don’t succeed in killing them off then I predict that at some point in the future electric scooters will be everywhere, in every city, and probably free to ride for all. They are definitely part of the future.

I hope policy makers understand that when it comes to alternate and more holistic and sustainable forms of transportation that this is all a wave and the wave is always going to keep going forward. I remember a few years ago the city had a big debate about letting bicycles roll through stops when the intersection is clear. Well now we have electric scooters and even more things. City leaders need to understand that there is only going to be more and more of this kind of thing, not less of it, so they should start accepting and embracing the realities of alternate, sustainable modes of transportation as being the norm, and all the stuff that is imposed for the sake of supporting motor vehicle-dominated roadways it what should be viewed as abnormal, not the other way around.

In situations where there’s a lot of space and less possibility for adverse situations to occur there’s not really a challenge. Having a lot of existing bicycle-dedicated infrastructure helps a lot. But the challenge is in places of high density where inevitably adverse situations will occur and whether reactive politicians will cave in to the black PR and enact draconian measures or not.

For electric scooters to be successful I think it will require two things: First and foremost is that the riders will be responsible, respectful, and not erratic. Second, political leaders will have to support them and not reactively cave in to restricting them. The goals should be to have healthy flows of people comporting themselves by different means safely and respectfully and for people to always be aware of the need to be respectful and responsible.