a moving missive from manchester
As very probably the least-travelled person you know, it’ll perhaps come as some surprise then that, on one of my rare forays out into the big bad world last week, I had my first encounter with the latest phenomenon that’s taking the Western world by silent storm, hired motorised e-scooters. Unbeknown to me, over the last couple of years electric scooters have become both ubiquitous and synonymous with inner city travel throughout Europe and America, with 38 million e-scooter journeys taking place in the US alone. True to recent form, Britain appears to be the last bastion to hold-out against this current wave of immigration!
E-scoots work in the same manner as ‘dockless’ bikes in that they are not collected or deposited from dedicated, designated hire centres but can be left anywhere the rider chooses and picked-up wherever the next customer finds it. They are fitted with GPS trackers, controlled by a combination of new-fangled apps, QR codes and wireless connectivity, with an Uber style of account payment. Consequently, they are the predominantly domain of the connected youf, who cough up to the tune of, on average, $1 plus 15 cents per minute for the privilege. Now, that strikes even this ol’ geezer, with a dreadful two-wheeled accident track-record, as both a bit of a steal and a great way to get around.
No-one can deny that most, if not all, cities are already heavily congested and dangerously over-polluted. On the face of it, scooters have the potential to help solve one of our biggest transport problems: urban journeys and the fulfilment of the ‘final mile’ of most jaunts. Even when taking into account the environmental cost of production and battery development they are clean, relatively inexpensive and require precious little new infrastructure beyond the potential enhancement of existing cycle lanes. As it transpires, over 40% of ride-hailing journeys in cities are of a distance under two miles, and the potential of e-scooters is obvious. Mind, following on from my earlier ‘every little helps’ post would I be wrong to cry ‘walk FFS!’?
However, the concerns of ‘aggrieved from Tunbridge Wells’ need to be heard and they tend to focus on public safety. In Atlanta, Georgia, e-scooters have been banned between 9pm and 4am after four riders were tragically killed. Britain, which classes e-scoots as Personal Electric Light Vehicles and necessitate a full vehicular MOT, recently experienced its first fatality, when TV presenter Emily Hartridge went under the wheels of a turning lorry. In Paris, the locals are up-in-arms about the ‘trottinettes’ which now routinely litter their gilded avenues and fantastic boulevards. But, when all said and done, they are French after all.
Personally, though several seemed to be piloted by those slightly worse-for-wear later in the evening, I thought they were ace and hope they’re here to stay. My only concern is that within this country they’ll go the same way as Mobike, who eventually retreated from Manchester, citing theft and wanton vandalism. It was the first time any such company had withdrawn from a city: the company went south whilst the majority of its orange-wheeled stock went in the Manchester Ship Canal!
why not look here hydraruzxpnew4af