e-Scooters are taking over… San Antonio and everywhere else!
This has undoubtedly been the year of the electric scooter (the e-Scooter), investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into these scooter companies this past year. Uber has partnered with Lime, and Ford has bought Spin. e-Scooter economics, with so much competition, is very difficult, so more consolidation is likely. Many e-Scooters are wearing out or lost before they have earned their cost of manufacturing back from the rentals. Business owners are having e-Scooter towed and impounded if they are left on private property. At this point, all e-Scooter companies are not making a profit, but are vying for the long-range goal of outlasting the competition and owning the space,
Bird is currently valued at $2.3 billion, because it was the first electric scooter company to launch in September 2017. In September 2018, Bird announced it hit 10 million rides across its many cities, from 2 million riders. Now it’s 2019 and these e-Scooters seem to be everywhere!
There are many challenges for e-Scooters riders, not the least of which are basic balance and riding skills, and watching out for potholes, cars, pedestrians, and other scooters!
Where there are millennials and post-millennials there are these app-controlled electric e-Scooters. San Antonio has joined the ranks of the cities to have them on every corner. They are also on every corner in 100+ other cities around the US. Abroad, e-Scooters are popping up in most major cities, there too.
The San Antonio City Council has been tweaking the rules for dockless vehicles like electric scooters since day one. The rules prohibit the companies from allowing their scooters to be used between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. It also allows the city to impound them if they’re blocking rights of way. There has been a relative lack of consideration for pedestrians and as as a result, dockless, app-controlled electric scooters cannot be ridden on San Antonio’s sidewalk any longer!
At last count, there are more than 12,000 scooters from seven companies in San Antonio: Lime, Bird, Razor, Jump, Lyft, Spin, and Blue Duck, with more scooters on the way.
What’s it like to ride an electric scooter? It’s a lot like riding the foot-powered scooter, only fasater, and no sweating. It takes two or three foot-kicks to engage the motor then off you go. Balancing? If you can balance on a two-wheeled bike, you can probably balance on a scooter, but the scooter’s small hard wheels mean you feel every bump and pothole! Also, hand turn signals take practice, you are, at that point, controlling the scooter with only one hand.
Caution: Zipping through red lights and stop signs or cutting across parking lots to save time can get you a ticket from the police, which is expensive and time-consuming if you must appear in traffic court.
Unlike the shared bicycles, scooters are not stored at a docking bank – but that may be in their future. Now they are left were the renter gets off. At popular venues and hangouts, there can be a pile of them. They do have GPS and every evening, the company collects them recharges them overnight, and places them in the most likely to be used spots.
To rent one, you download the app, put in your credit card information, take a photo of your driver’s license, (you must be over 18) and agree to a number of conditions, you unlock the scooter by opening the app and taking a picture of the QR code on the handle. The scooter beeps to tell you it’s unlocked and it is ready to go. There is an hourly fee and an unlocking fee. Currently, it costs $1 to unlock a scooter and 15 cents per minute to ride, or $10 for the first hour. A fully charged scooter is good for about 15 miles, depending on hills, the rider’s weight, and other conditions.
Most scooters have built-in “geo-fencing” keeping scooters out of areas the cities have defined as “no-scooter-zones.” When entering one of these zones, the scooter will first give a warning beep, if not headed, it will power down. When you get the scooter back into a user-friendly zone, it will start again.
Are e-Scooters Dangerous? Please Be Cautious!
The BIG headline about e-Scooters? – More and more people are being hurt daily and even killed on these things. There’s growing evidence that e-Scooters may be inherently risky and riders often don’t actually know the dangers they face when they rent them.
- e-Scooter companies have gone to great lengths to dodge liability for the accidents and injuries e-Scooters have caused. Some terms of service say riders must wear a helmet. (Who carries a helmet with them?)
All types of injuries have occurred, from broken bones and internal injuries to major spine injuries and trauma to the brain. Watch your speed, e-Scooter accidents involving faster speeds and riders not wearing helmets are usually more severe.
The rise of e-Scooters and the mounting accidents on these vehicles have caused a surge in emergency room visits across the USA. ERs are getting many new emergency room visits per day, due specifically to e-Scooter accidents.
For now, these e-Scooters are everywhere, a convenience for many and a nuisance for others. It will be interesting to see how this quagmire works itself out over the next five years.
(Source: information for this article has been gleaned from many online sources.)
