Scooter Trail!!

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Even when a vehicle is zero rated, either through emissions or classic status, you still have to apply for your free VED annually.

I know, but there it is...
The person involved is not British and is not used to the levels of petty, worthless, futile bureaucracy that exist here.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
I totally agree, let's make them legal...However, just like bikes, they have no business being in the town centre which is pedestrianised zone.
As sure as night follows day & accidents to those walking will of course happen.
IMO cyclists & pedestrians do not mix well
Indeed, there was a sign outside a nest of e-scooters today, stating they should only be used where you can legally ride a bicycle. Which isn't on the pavement.
Stafford isn't big enough for a scheme like this to be anything other than an experiment, so we need to first ask, an experiment to answer what?

Whether 'Ginger' will be out of pocket by the end of it? seems like it needs little consideration. It will. Whether privately owned e-scooters could become legal beyond private property? is the more interesting and further reaching question.

The initial thesis must be "this form of transport can be incorporated into the commuting 'eco-system' (sort of thing)." The experiment tests this thesis.

Where does it sit in the hierarchy?

It's not a road vehicle, surely we can all agree on that - people are already not inclined to ride e-bikes on the highway, and provision for cycles of any description is pretty woeful and more importantly unlikely to get any better any time soon, so no one with even half a brain is going to jump out of their car and on to an e-scooter if they have to join the queues on the A518.

If this form of transport is not going to be allowed on the pavement, then it is already dead.

There are things you could do - currently for example, cycle lanes need to be 1.5m in width, making it impossible to create separated cycle lanes on most footpaths; make scooter lanes half of that and you could make a massive network.

The 15mph limit is undeniably excessive, but it's probably just based on existing e-bike legislation, and they are road legal - restrict e-scooters to 8mph and they're now in line with mobility scooters that are already legal on pavements, and you're still travelling at c. x2 normal walking pace, extending your 'range' by a factor of 2, Baswich to Town Centre in c.15mins.

Obviously these possibilities will come to nothing because ultimately we are not allowed nice things because
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so they might as well just pack up now.
 

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
Group of 4 riding round Sainsburys short stay at the mo. They seem go quite a speed.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I have been told*:-

1, They are supposed to be geo-locked from being powered when in the pedestrian area.

2, There have been groups of lads riding them up and down the main street today.



* But, I have no idea what is actually true any more.
 

c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
I have been told*:-

1, They are supposed to be geo-locked from being powered when in the pedestrian area.

2, There have been groups of lads riding them up and down the main street today.



* But, I have no idea what is actually true any more.
In regards to point one I would say that is a load of cobblers given that they are parked opposite the old 99p store (that was next to Lloyds Bank).
 

Wormella

Well-Known Forumite
Spotted four parked at the Technology Park this morning.
I was trying to work out where you'd go on them but that makes sense. The outer reaches of the tech park to town is easily an 1hr walk, I wonder what those scooters cut it down to.
 

c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
I've yet to see any charging points for them? The drop off point opposite the old 99p store is that, a drop off point only
 

EasMid

Well-Known Forumite
I heard on radio Stoke yesterday that the council “may be reviewing the situation due to safety concerns about the scooters in pedestrian areas”
 

Pooryorick

Well-Known Forumite
The main st and sq are open to traffic early and late, so the obvious solution is to make the scoots available only at night.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
TBF, nothing is visible if you are blind.

It's almost like it's a defining feature of the condition.

On its own, 'not being visible to blind people' is not an argument against anything.
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
Presumably they’re monitored and someone pops round to hot swap the battery.

I did wonder about theft, but seems they use custom firmware, alarms, and the wheels lock when not in use. You’d presumably be driving round with one screaming to high heaven and giving away its location via GPS if you tried to pop it in the back of a van.

Edit:

According to this, yeah it’s battery swapping:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter-sharing_system
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
It's almost like they thought of all of these things before you did.

Get ready for a new word, kids - perspicacity

:google: that shit, it's real.
 
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