Dockless Scooters Leaving The City Due To Regulations But Need To Look In The Mirror
Lime squeezed about all it can out of San Diego and has pulled out of the city, the company announced in January.
It is the third dockless electric scooter company to do so since September, joining Skip and Uber’s Jump. This still leaves three scooter companies operating in San Diego: Bird, Lyft and Spin.
Lime cited its exit on the city banning scooters on the beach path from Mission Bay to La Jolla and other restrictions.
“As part of our path to profitability, Lime has made the difficult decision to exit San Diego and focus our resources on markets that allow us to meet our ambitious goals for 2020,” Brad Bao, co-founder and CEO of Lime, stated in a statement. “We appreciate the partnership we’ve enjoyed with San Diego and remain hopeful we can reintroduce Lime back into the community when the time is right.”
At the same time, Lime also pulled out of Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego and San Antonio. It still operates in 120 cities worldwide.
Bao seems to blame San Diego for Lime leaving but he, as well as the other dockless scooter companies, needs to look in the mirror. Lime had a whopping 4,500 scooters in the city and the company – as is the case with all scooter companies – appears to do little to monitor its riders and employees.
The scooters are a menace because the riders are unsupervised. The renters ride on sidewalks, blast through intersections without even slowing down for lights or stop signs and leave the devices all over the place.
When you walk through the Gaslamp Quarter you have to be on alert or else you will get run over or might trip over a scooter left in the middle of the sidewalk or hidden behind a tree.
I’ve also seen kids on scooters – riders are supposed to be at least 18 years old – and even two kids on them. In Mission Beach, the city to monitored this and not the companies. In late summer, it began placing police officers on the bike and walk path to confiscate scooters from underage riders.
And then there are the employees who are charged with picking up, re-charging and re-distributing the devices. They park vans and trucks next to the discarded scooters anywhere on the street. I even saw one pull up and park in a handicapped spot in Mission Beach as if were reserved for him.
And finally, there are simply too many scooters. They have been swallowing the city.
Instead of mourning the loss of Lime and the other scooter companies, I have a different take on the matter: good riddance.
As the article points out, the riders do not ride safely.
They can stay long if care about riders safety.