Fed-up locals are setting electric scooters on fire and burying them at sea

[dalton99a]

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-bird-scooter-vandalism-20180809-story.html

Fed-up locals are setting electric scooters on fire and burying them at sea
By Laura Newberry
Aug 10, 2018 | 4:00 AM


Westside vandals are waging a guerrilla war against pay-per-mile scooters. These Bird electric scooters were left on the Venice Beach boardwalk. (Gabriel S. Scarlett / Los Angeles Times)

As cities like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills struggle to control a rapid proliferation of electric pay-per-minute scooters, some residents are taking matters into their own hands and waging a guerrilla war against the devices. These vandals are destroying or desecrating the vehicles in disturbingly imaginative ways, and celebrating their illegal deeds on social media — in full view of authorities and the public.

“They throw them everywhere: in the ocean, in the sand, in the trash can,” said Robert Johnson Bey, a Venice Beach maintenance worker who regularly comes across scooter parts on the Venice Beach boardwalk, Speedway and adjoining alleys.

The vandalism echoes a rash of pellet-gun attacks on so-called Google buses in the Bay Area and appears to be motivated in part by resentment over the increasing presence of tech corporations along the Southern California coast — what is now dubbed Silicon Beach.

But unlike the attacks on buses that ferry workers to their Google and Apple offices, the scooter destruction has elicited little sympathy or outrage — to say nothing of criminal investigations. The Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division has received just one report of scooter vandalism that resulted in an arrest, but the case was rejected by the prosecutor. The Santa Monica Police Department said it hasn’t received any such reports.

Hailed as a cheap, clean-energy solution to urban gridlock when they first arrived in Los Angeles a year ago, Bird and Lime scooters now find themselves on the receiving end of a public and bureaucratic backlash — especially on the Westside, where they’ve established a buzzing omnipresence.

While most tech entrepreneurs expect some criticism and calls for regulation when they introduce new and potentially disruptive products, they don’t necessarily anticipate the outright destruction of their property. They also don’t expect to see such carnage celebrated and encouraged on social media.

Yet mayhem directed at dockless scooters is the order of the day on Instagram’s “Bird Graveyard,” whose contributors relish publishing photos and videos of scooters that have been set aflame, tossed into canals, smeared with feces and snapped into pieces. The account has more than 24,000 followers.

....

[GusBob]

1. What a strange news story, thought it satire at first

Can't wrap my mind around this cultural war.

Do the vandals enjoy smog, I wonder?

[canetoad]

2. Strangely, not a unique problem

Melbourne (Au.) has recently removed oBikes, dockless commuter cycles. Article from last month:

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melburnians-were-always-going-to-give-obikes-the-big-a-20180705-p4zpn3.html

snip
The yellow bikes came out of the blue, uninvited. There was no big advertising campaign. Just a website, a few tweets, and presto, here's hundreds of yellow bikes absolutely everywhere.

Their head of marketing at the time, Chethan Rangaswamy, did a lot of radio interviews, and his message was unwavering. That is, the Singaporean start-up's only responsibility was to educate Melbourne about the importance of their product to our lives.

His company didn't care what Melbourne thinks. We had no say in it. They argued that because dockless share bikes were a success elsewhere, they would have to be a success here.

But that's the thing. Dockless share bikes weren't a success anywhere else. Cities all over the world were having the same problems. Reports from China, US and Europe read almost exactly how they read here. Vandalism and colourful metal everywhere, taking over streets, parks and waterways like metal weeds.

[dalton99a]

4. Bike sharing in China:

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/03/bike-share-oversupply-in-china-huge-piles-of-abandoned-and-broken-bicycles/556268/
The Bike-Share Oversupply in China: Huge Piles of Abandoned and Broken Bicycles
Alan Taylor | Mar 22, 2018

[ProudLib72]

8. We have bike shares around CO

In Aurora, I see the share bikes scattered all over the place. I don't know if it's intentional vandalism or just laziness/carelessness. It's pretty sad, though. The people who instituted the program had a good idea. There are certainly a lot of people who have difficulty with commuting.

[msongs]

3. saw some pics of piles of tens of thousands of abandoned bikes in china...

like they were a plague of locusts

[lunasun]

5. It just said start me for a dollar . I thought then what does it cost?

There is no dock to get them from . They are just
Wherever!

Visitor not local just an observe

[dalton99a]

14. It is $1 to start and 15 cents per minute

You need a smart phone with their app installed, a driver license, and a credit card

[Archae]

6. In Milwaukee they were banned outright, after a couple accidents.

They were illegal to begin with in the city, and then a few people got hurt bad getting hit by drivers of those.

So now any on the streets will be confiscated.

[dalton99a]

7. Scooter Startups Roll Into Trouble as Cities Slow Their Expansion (WSJ)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/scooter-startups-roll-into-trouble-as-cities-slow-their-expansion-1534003200
Scooter Startups Roll Into Trouble as Cities Slow Their Expansion
Denver impounds hundreds of scooters without operating permits before drafting rules of the road for pilot program
By Eliot Brown
Aug. 11, 2018 12:00 p.m. ET

Shortly after two startups dropped hundreds of scooters on the streets of Denver without permission in May, frustrated city officials responded swiftly with vehicles of their own. A platoon of workers in vans and pickups scooped up more than 300 of the scooters and impounded them.

As shared-scooter companies Bird Rides Inc. and Lime, flush with investors’ cash, race into new cities around the U.S., they are finding city officials emboldened to enact regulations that limit the companies’ rapid growth. Urban authorities from Miami to Portland, Ore., are capping their numbers at a few hundred per company, or in some cases blocking the deployment altogether.

This could prove a big challenge for Bird and Lime, which have drawn nearly $900 million of investment between them with ambitions of launching thousands or tens of thousands of scooters on the streets of hundreds of U.S. cities. Sixteen-month-old Bird was recently valued by investors at $2 billion, and 20-month-old Lime at $1.1 billion—the two fastest U.S. startups to pass a $1 billion valuation, according to data tracker PitchBook. The closely held companies don’t disclose financial data.

Multiple other scooter startups have formed recently, and ride-sharing companies Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are planning a push into the space.

....

[SunSeeker]

9. They literally clog the sidewalks of West L.A. and Santa Monica.

People just abandon them when the get to their destination and they sit there in unsightly, neighborhood-blighting ugly jumbles. You have to step over them to walk down the sidewalk.

Then it dawned on me. Lime and Bird are using public property to in essence store their scooters free of charge. They are stealing from the public, while at the same time creating a safety hazard and a neighborhood nuisance. The damn things need to be banned. People can just buy their own scooters and keep them on their own property, not on public property. Enough!

[dalton99a]

15. +1. They're also blocking doors and walkways on college campuses

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. Why aren't the renters financially responsibly for their return?

If I knew I could get hit with a charge for the scooter or with a fine for dumping it, I sure as hell would make sure it was returned safe and sound.

.......... .........

[MissB]

11. They are dockless. They don't need anything more than space on a sidewalk.

You need an app to unlock the ones around here. I’m sure they have some sort of gps that tells you where there is an available one. Some folks earn money by picking them up at night, recharging them and putting them in a better location.

[dalton99a]

12. Charging them is rapidly becoming a Hunger Games business model:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/charging-electric-scooters-is-a-cutthroat-business/560747/
Electric Scooter Charger Culture Is Out of Control
“Bird hunting” has become a pastime and a side hustle for teens and young professionals, but for some it’s a cutthroat business.
Taylor Lorenz
May 20, 2018

Every afternoon around 4 p.m., when school lets out, Brandon, an 18-year-old high-school senior in Los Angeles who asked to be referred to only by his first name, goes “Bird hunting.” He heads for his minivan and, on the drive home, he’ll swing through convenient neighborhoods, picking up about 13 Bird electric scooters along the way, tossing them into the back of his car.

“I have a whole system,” he says. “I’ll go home, put the 13 I initially caught on the chargers. They’ll charge for about three hours until around 7 or 8 p.m.”—when Bird makes more scooters available for charger pickup. “Then I’ll go back out.”

Over the course of the next few hours, Brandon loops around his Santa Monica, California, neighborhood collecting as many scooters as possible. He brings back his bounty and, as his parents sleep, neatly sets them up to charge in batches overnight.

The next morning he wakes up early, eats breakfast, and drops them off in groups of three at designated Bird Nests, designated pickup areas for scooters, on his way to school. For performing this service, Bird pays Brandon, a contract worker, up to several hundred dollars a night. On one particularly successful night, Brandon brought home $600.

....

[MissB]

13. Guess that offsets the electric bill.

I had no idea that particular side hustle could be so lucrative. I figured it wouldn’t pay that well unless you were a renter that didn’t have to pay for electricity.

[LisaM]

16. I was just in San Diego, and they were a nuisance.

There were people whizzing about on them everywhere, oblivious to pedestrians and to the laws they are supposed to be following, which included riding them on the street, wearing helmets, needing to be a certain age to ride them, and to only have one rider. They were on the sidewalks, people were doubled up on them, small children were riding, and a friend and I almost got hit by two guys who went through a stop sign on them.

And this doesn't address the significant clutter they cause. And yes, they are using public resources free of charge. They need to be taxed, if nothing else.

I'm tired of these companies behaving this way. The Bird guy used to be an executive at Uber, so I'm sure laws mean nothing to him.