Just this week in Vantaa, Finland three 12-year-old girls piled onto one of those electric scooters you subscribe to with an app and proceeded to get run over by a car at a crossing, killing one of them

The app is supposed to have an age restriction but it’s easy to bypass and you’re not supposed to have more than one person riding on one, which people routinely ignore

I hate seeing kids and teens speeding around dangerously on those fucking things and then just leaving them laying around on high-traffic bike routes because they don’t give a shit since they treat the scooters as completely disposable

Fucking awful bazinga-brained Silicon Valley-ass idea and business model. Actually, there are also bikes you can use with an app but curiously you don’t see kids doing reckless shit with those, almost as if electric scooters were uniquely terrible thonk

  • doublepepperoni [none/use name]OPEnglish
    7•1 year ago

    This is a European city with functioning public transport and bike infrastructure. I do think electric-powered or assisted vehicles are great for the elderly and the disabled but these things come off as pointless toys when there are already plenty of other ways to get around without a car

    I assume this is where the split between US and European hexbears on the topic is coming from

    • HexBroke [any, comrade/them]English
      6•1 year ago

      European city with functioning public transport and bike infrastructure

      Is cycling use that high?

      Europeans love to jerk themselves off about how great their cycling and non-car transport is and then you read stuff like this

      On average, every Dane covered a distance of almost 14,000 km in 2010

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]OPEnglish
        6•1 year ago

        Is cycling use that high?

        In major urban areas, yes. However, basically every middle class family still has one or two cars. You also have low-density rural areas where you have to use a car to get anywhere