Especially in touristy areas like South Florida, the use of e-scooters, e-bikes and other “micromobility” vehicles has skyrocketed in recent years, writes columnist Fred Grimm — and so …
Let's put the blame on the people who get hit by cars again!
The best fix would be protected lanes (not just paint on a tiny strip of the road), but since they won't bother, wear protective gear and keep your head on a swivel when you're out there!
You would think that but I live in a city with protected bike lanes. The scooter riders are dinguses usually. They ride without helmets. They ride way faster than the bikers do which means they're constantly dipping in and out of the lanes trying to pass people. Also they have tiny little wheels with zero contact so when they need to brake in an emergency they can't stop properly. All that put together is asking for an injury.
Those could be special use cases driven by properly trained people with a CDL that get a pass or we could find new ways to do things, but there are a shitload of absolutely massive personal vehicles being driven around by people who don't know wtf they're doing and people are dying as a direct result.
The Netherlands here - even with protected car lanes, e-scooters are forbidden on the roads. Previous experiences from other cities like París seem to reinforce the government’s position.
Edit: Maybe the argument would be better served by separating these two issues: With the increase in bike transit, especially as a partial remedy for ecological purposes, they deserve to have their own lanes (and legal priority in transit - something we have here) at the expense of more-polluting vehicles. Separately, e-scooters can travel in those separate lanes, but they require helmets at least (though this opens the door to having ebike users wear helmets, which isn’t a bad idea).