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So if I rent it from a commercial company (which owns the scooter, so effectively is 'privately' owned rather than 'state owned'), it's ok to use on the roads, but if I own it myself (privately owned), it isn't?

Anyone seen the basis for this?

Is it because it's a trial, they trying to keep numbers down in the first instance?

An insurance issue?

Are there conditions of operation that apply? (the article refers to LA's running rental schemes, or allowing third party operators to do so)

From reading other sources, the rationale is that rental firms will have decent scooters, not just £15 tat off ebay and amazon.

It also presumably means there are a only a few known entities responsible for looking after them, so you know who to complain to when they start being abandonded around the place.

A personally owned scooter is more likely to be abandoned. Chained up to somebody else's railings like a bike, maybe, but only casually dumped if it's been stolen.

False, take a look at what has been happening in the USA with rental electric scooters and rental bikes. All those companies crashed and burned and hundreds of the things ended just abandoned on the street. Some of the bikes were recycled but the scooters became trash the cities that allowed them in the first place had to clean up. And this was before the Coronavirus!

Rental scooters are a plague. Just take a trip to Austin or any other US city* condemned to deal with them

*Maybe not right now, obviously.

It will certainly be interesting to see who the first companies to capitalise on this are and what their relationship with certain ministers is

and if it's Dom and his pal Boris, or any other usual suspect, what then? :/

It's claimed that this is to prevent a flood of poorly maintained "vehicles" onto the roads.

I'm not sure I follow that logic, given bikes are allowed on the roads. But this is the best the UK government can do these days, it seems.

You suspect logic behind any of this? Perhaps a corrupt, devious form. I suspect one or more croney mates are involved and want to ensure only their snouts can be at the that trough.

Insurance: rental companies can be easily policed to check they provide insurance cover for when the renter rides into an old lady at 15mph. Harder to police for privately owned ones. If there is a requirement for licensing them, displaying insurance etc people won't bother. If they can be treated the same as bicycles (legal even with electric assistance) then the problem goes away.

"Anyone seen the basis for this?"

The rental company will be paying some sort of licensing to the local authority or DfT. You don't pay them anything - except, of course, everything you're paying already.

I guess this way it's easier to ensure that the scooters remain compliant in terms of max speed, acceleration, likelihood of bursting into flame etc. Allow privately owned scooters and you'll lose that control.

I have posted before, and I post again. There is an unholy alliance of business wanting MaaS, and big gov control freakery who are determined to stamp out private ownership of the means of mobility. So, sure, you can privately own and fly an aircraft but don't expect the same freedom with the emergent tech.

Err, haven't these electric scooters and unicycles for that matter been all over the streets of London for a few years?

Certainly were legion where I worked, nr Southwark bridge

Just knock them off. If they complain tell them to raise the matter to the Police, making sure to tell them you had a collision with them whilst illegally riding their Scooter.

In my country, these scooters are geo-fenced to the inner city, they simply stop working if you go to the outer districts, which kind of negates their intended/advertised purpose. My place of work is well within city limits, yet outside the geo-fence. Thus, I would not be able to use one.

The geo-fencing makes sense for the scooter rental company as it limits the service area. After all, some poor, underpaid souls need to collect/replace them using gasoline-powered vans each night. So much for clean, electically-powered mobility. From a potential user's perspective, the geo-fencing precludes meaningful use, i.e. inner-city commute.

I mostly observe some kids driving them, themselves alone or with a passenger, for fun. If the scooters reduce any means of traffic, they reduce short walks, e.g. from the flat to the bus stop.

What I could also observe over the last years, since they popped up in my city: rental scooters make people behave anti-socially. Scooters are left on the pavement at the very spot the driver steps off them. Hence, they block parts of the pavement next to the entrances of appartment buildings, at bus or tram stops. People drive them on the pavement with all the associated risks of relatively large relative velocities, overtaking from behind and slightly randomly walking pedestrians.

I am not impressed by the contribution to society by the availability of rental electric scooters. I don't see many benefits, yet experience their downsides.

They're really not good here for much either.

I don't see quite so many as I did a year ago, too, which suggests that the business model isn't really doing very well. Especially given that one of the firms doing it here just got taken over by a taxi company...

I think that throwing each abandoned scooter back into the road will be very effective at reducing car traffic.

Luckily, no one would ever dream of downloading and printing off a Lime sticker to stick to their own scooter, would they ...?

These scooters are not for me, but if it frees up a seat on the bus or a parking space at the station, I'm all for other people using them.

There are also instructions on The Internet, for recycling abandoned/salvaged/bought at auction commercial scooters. This generally involves replacing the custom controller with the manufacturer's original controller, or a Chinese(for that is where they all originate) copy thereof, thereby restoring its original functions.

Sccoters here in the US were scooped up by cities with whom Lime had no authorization to operate, and auctioned off as junk by the cities. Also, recovered from skips, ditches and such, damaged but repairable if you found two or more. For a while, there was a thriving rebuild business going.

I'm not sure how much these trials will prove. Surely a lot of the potential use will be privately owned ones that people use for a short-ish commute or run to the shops etc. The market for pick-up-and-go rental could be quite limited, and will only really apply in large towns & cities, for people who have perhaps driven in and then need to go a mile or two to other locations, as an alternative to a taxi or bus. The trial will give little evidence for overall demand and practicalities.

And for those complaining that they can be left to litter the streets? Easy, if one's been abandoned on the pavement, chuck it over a fence or in the canal.

I'm not sure I get where the "leave it wherever" mentality came from originally. If I rent literally anything else, I'm responsible for returning it to the renter in a reasonable condition. If the renting company allows their users to leave the scooters in the middle of any pavement, you start getting these issues coming up (like littering & public nuisance, damaged vehicles, having to round them up from all over the city each night).

Surely it would make most sense to scatter a set of stands around a city (e.g. next to transit hubs, car parks, major shopping locations etc). Most people who want to use these things will likely arrive in a city via a transit hub etc and will likely be returning there at the end of the day.

People who live and work in a city (whose house and workplace aren't located near a stand) would likely buy their own version for commuting, if they don't already have something comparable.

The thing is, that is their main value add over, say, a Boris Bike.

You find one near where you are (after a bunch of them have been seeded at areas of high use), rent it and then un-rent it when you get to where you are going. If you have to leave it somewhere central, then that will defeat the purpose of it.

Yes, they are a massive pain in the arse and people drive them like morons. Yes, people do not abide by the usage agreement, not by traffic rules either and yes, as a cyclist, I hate them with a passion. Here (Stockholm) they are also way more expensive than taking the subway or a bus. BUT... You can find them everywhere and take them most places you want to go.

The problem, with most things, is people. They are the idiots that leave them everywhere and cause an issue. I do hope though, that the trial in this case will ensure that a hire includes liability insurance. If a helmet and a driving license is mandatory, it should also mean that enforcement of things is a lot easier: No helmet == ticket and points.

Around here, the scooter companies' model was to pay "recoverers" for each scooter recovered from "wherever". They'd print off lists of the GPS locations and the recoverers would go out at night and return them all to their central locations.

I don't see as many as there used to be around Boston. I think the model may have had a few cracks in it.

Every now and then, I do see someone whizzing along on a scooter, electric skateboard or "uni-wheel", often without a helmet. I think about what would happen if one of those tiny wheels were to encounter a Boston-sized pothole, or if the driver were to encounter one of our famed Boston drivers, and shudder.

The bloom appears to be off the scooter "rose", at least, in Boston. Rental bikes seem to be a thing, still, at least the dockable kind. The leave-anywhere ones seem to have vanished. Or maybe, just relocated:

https://media.wired.com/photos/59559cb13ff99d6b3a1d129e/master/w_2560%2Cc_limit/Hangzhou_2017_01.jpg

>Surely it would make most sense to scatter a set of stands around a city (e.g. next to transit hubs, car parks, major shopping locations etc). Most people who want to use these things will likely arrive in a city via a transit hub etc and will likely be returning there at the end of the day.

From what I understand with the rental bicycles that we have here, you'll get charged a return fee if the bike is left outside a designated return point for more than a few hours. I would reckon they'll make a tidy profit off people who don't read the service terms on the app that unlocks the things and presume they can just ditch it wherever because "I'm only using it this one time", or consider the fee to be an acceptable alternative to finding the nearest return point and walking the rest of the way, since it's still probably cheaper overall than taking a cab.

I could use one of these for shopping, going to the doctor/dentist and local visiting of friends ... if I owned it. All of which would replace car usage. No chance of that with the rental model.

I assume the intention is a cycling helmet as opposed to an ACU approved motorcycle lid.

A couple of decades back, a couple of mates and I fitted a strimmer engine to an adult sized scooter to use as a paddock 'bike'.

After a few weeks others had acquired similar and with the usual idiots racing each other in the paddock got them all banned.

Some of those idiots seem to be in the cities on e scooters now and will spoil it for others.

More importantly it will kill any potential usage of the things...

So they were "tried, but the public didn't want them", so we need to build more roads and car parks.

In an open and transparent democracy you would set standards for new types of transport (that are considered in need of regulating) and then you would allow private and commercial interests to follow those standards.

Instead, as we don't live in an open and transparent democracy but one where funny handshakes and the old boy network hold sway, we hand over the public roads to special interest groups to set their own agendas, standards and ultimately enforcement. Can't you just see [whoever has shaken hands on this] going to propose their "operatives" are allowed to stop "unlicensed" riders on public roads - obviously the police are far too busy, so just like the Post Office and the BBC being allowed to be judge, jury and executioner so will these chinless wonders.

Why bother with these death traps. Wouldn't it make more sense to bring e-bike rules in line with most of Europe e.g. speed limits and twist and go operation.

Oh and enforce existing laws such as bloody lights. No lights at night. Take the bloody bike off them and make them walk home.

Also, make helmets compulsory.

And how exactly does a copper on foot catch a teenager on a mountain bike? Teenagers tend to have a good grasp of local geography, i.e alleyways and paths that police cars can't follow.

Electric scooters, when set on fire, make a pretty good barricade against the police during a protest - as demonstrated recently by some irate Parisians (who tend to be experts in such matters).

Why do you need a driving license to rent an electric scooter but any one can go to Halfords and by a peddle bike and ride down the road (or often the pavement near me even though the council spent money painting cycle lanes on the roads) without even having to have demonstrated they have basic road sense?

Perhaps the e-scooters can accelerate faster than someone on a bike, but if a cyclist hits someone doing 10+ mph they can cause just as many injuries to pedestrians as a e-scooter rider, and that's not accounting for other accidents untrained cyclists they might cause by running lights, pulling out without looking etc causing other drivers to swerve to avoid them.

Only according to [1]Nathan Barley .

These toys do not:

reduce car journeys

make a positive contribution to climate change

have a viable business model

Oh, and helmets are pretty fucking useless for all the knee and hand injuries that people suffer with them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhAr_UeroCk