Dangerous e-scooters?

Tangled Metal
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Joined: 13 Feb 2015, 8:32pm

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Tangled Metal »

Substitute any transportation into above rant about enforcement. Including buses! Not sure about trains, ferries and aeroplanes. I'm hoping they're the types of transportation that do have enforcement.

Car drivers flout the law. Ebikers flout the law as do cyclists. Motorbikers stick non road legal race pipes on bikes and race around the countryside like they're on race tracks. Buses overtake and cut you up when on your bike as of they own the road with impunity. Tip with buses, occasionally a complaint will get a couple of communications from a manager and supervisor saying the driver has been talked to. It might make you feel good about it but long term nothing has been done.

Of course we could take police off other duties to enforcement the roads but I suspect we'd then kick off about what gets dropped to do so. No solution without more money from taxation. My bet you'd get the service with over 50% taxation on income alone but who wants that right?
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

toontra wrote: 19 Nov 2022, 10:20pm
Airsporter1st wrote: 18 Nov 2022, 9:05am
toontra wrote: 9 Oct 2022, 8:35pm As seen today - an e-scooter doing 25+ mph along an "enclosed" cycle lane with floating parking. Bloody dangerous to themselves and anyone getting in the way. It's the speeds involved that massively increase the risk factor, certainly beyond what an average un-assisted cyclist would pose.
What I find intriguing about posts (and threads) of this nature, is the ease with which you could substitute “cycle” for “e-bike”, up the estimated speed to suit and post it on a motorist’s forum.
Don't know where you live. I'm in central London and I see very few un-assisted cyclists doing 25+ in a segregated cycle lane for any distance, certainly on the flat as my example was.

It's not the electrical assist I have a problem with, either scooters or e-bikes. It's the ones rigged - illegally - to exceed the manufacturer's limiter that pose an increased risk. Coincidentally (or maybe not) these are the same ones that are often ridden dangerously and irresponsibly.
If they're private e-scooters, they almost certainly have no manufacturer's limiter. This is because UK has opted out of regarding e-scooters as vehicles, so there are no regs. If we legalised them, we could regulate their speed and power, perhaps require lights too; things that the hire scooters have.
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Cugel
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Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Cugel »

Tangled Metal wrote: 21 Nov 2022, 6:50am
Of course we could take police off other duties to enforcement the roads but I suspect we'd then kick off about what gets dropped to do so. No solution without more money from taxation. My bet you'd get the service with over 50% taxation on income alone but who wants that right?
If there was a mechanism imposed to ensure the extra dosh was spent on traffic police and the infrastructure to prosecute road loons, I'd be happy to pay at least another 25% on me income tax. Don't forget that there's so many road loons that the fines and car repossessions would likely provide another huge wodge to help pay for their being had-up and stopped from maiming & killing in vast numbers. There'd also be a significant saving on the NHS bill for mending the maimed.

The problem with low-tax, minimal government ideology is that its then only the well-off who can afford what would otherwise be national infrastructure available to all. Consider, for example, the damage being done to the teeth of millions because, effectively, NHS dentistry is all but gone. Consider also that any kind of civil justice is now only available to the rich. And that criminal justice is now available to hardly anyone - only those with enough political power to jump to the head of the very long queue for police and court services. Consider the rapidly deteriorating education & health services; the potholed and crumbling roads; the growing tide of unsolved petty crime; the pollutions & predations of privatised utility companies that have no public service ethic ...... .

British governments keep aping the USA, where life is utter misery for huge numbers who live there because they can't afford to pay for every little thing, whilst private companies do what they like in pursuit of profit at any cost - to everyone but themselves. And even if a US subject can afford things today, it takes only one unfortunate event for them to be milked dry of their money and property by the predatory lawyers, medical "services" and other vultures circling that unforgiving Plain of Social Darwinism.

************
High tax, high quality and extensive public services available to all. I'll vote for that.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
ANTONISH
Posts: 2967
Joined: 26 Mar 2009, 9:49am

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by ANTONISH »

Cugel wrote: 21 Nov 2022, 10:02am
Tangled Metal wrote: 21 Nov 2022, 6:50am
Of course we could take police off other duties to enforcement the roads but I suspect we'd then kick off about what gets dropped to do so. No solution without more money from taxation. My bet you'd get the service with over 50% taxation on income alone but who wants that right?
If there was a mechanism imposed to ensure the extra dosh was spent on traffic police and the infrastructure to prosecute road loons, I'd be happy to pay at least another 25% on me income tax. Don't forget that there's so many road loons that the fines and car repossessions would likely provide another huge wodge to help pay for their being had-up and stopped from maiming & killing in vast numbers. There'd also be a significant saving on the NHS bill for mending the maimed.

The problem with low-tax, minimal government ideology is that its then only the well-off who can afford what would otherwise be national infrastructure available to all. Consider, for example, the damage being done to the teeth of millions because, effectively, NHS dentistry is all but gone. Consider also that any kind of civil justice is now only available to the rich. And that criminal justice is now available to hardly anyone - only those with enough political power to jump to the head of the very long queue for police and court services. Consider the rapidly deteriorating education & health services; the potholed and crumbling roads; the growing tide of unsolved petty crime; the pollutions & predations of privatised utility companies that have no public service ethic ...... .

British governments keep aping the USA, where life is utter misery for huge numbers who live there because they can't afford to pay for every little thing, whilst private companies do what they like in pursuit of profit at any cost - to everyone but themselves. And even if a US subject can afford things today, it takes only one unfortunate event for them to be milked dry of their money and property by the predatory lawyers, medical "services" and other vultures circling that unforgiving Plain of Social Darwinism.

************
High tax, high quality and extensive public services available to all. I'll vote for that.

Cugel
+1 - says it all
Bmblbzzz
Posts: 6261
Joined: 18 May 2012, 7:56pm
Location: From here to there.

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Cugel wrote: 21 Nov 2022, 10:02am The problem with low-tax, minimal government ideology is that its then only the well-off who can afford what would otherwise be national infrastructure available to all.
This is not a problem, this is the aim of libertarianism.
Airsporter1st
Posts: 784
Joined: 8 Oct 2016, 3:14pm

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Airsporter1st »

toontra wrote: 19 Nov 2022, 10:20pm
Airsporter1st wrote: 18 Nov 2022, 9:05am
toontra wrote: 9 Oct 2022, 8:35pm As seen today - an e-scooter doing 25+ mph along an "enclosed" cycle lane with floating parking. Bloody dangerous to themselves and anyone getting in the way. It's the speeds involved that massively increase the risk factor, certainly beyond what an average un-assisted cyclist would pose.
What I find intriguing about posts (and threads) of this nature, is the ease with which you could substitute “cycle” for “e-bike”, up the estimated speed to suit and post it on a motorist’s forum.
Don't know where you live. I'm in central London and I see very few un-assisted cyclists doing 25+ in a segregated cycle lane for any distance, certainly on the flat as my example was.

It's not the electrical assist I have a problem with, either scooters or e-bikes. It's the ones rigged - illegally - to exceed the manufacturer's limiter that pose an increased risk. Coincidentally (or maybe not) these are the same ones that are often ridden dangerously and irresponsibly.
I’m not disputing any of your or others’ assertions, just trying to highlight the fact that similar criticisms are levied at cyclists by private motorists and at private motorists by professional drivers etc. etc. As such, I personally think threads criticising the users of another form of transport, especially those that generalise over a specific group, are counterproductive.
Tangled Metal
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Joined: 13 Feb 2015, 8:32pm

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Tangled Metal »

So hands up increasing your 20%tax band to 45%?

Who's got an affluent middle class income?

Keep your hands up those voting for the extra 25%!

How can you afford 45% tax rate when the tax allowance isn't going up any time soon and you're very near the break even point as it is? If I got taxed 45% for my earnings above about 12k I think I'd not be able to turn the heating on or would default on something. I think you need a good income to have that kind of outlook on taxation
ANTONISH
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Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by ANTONISH »

Better public services need to be paid for.
Nearholmer
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Joined: 26 Mar 2022, 7:13am

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Nearholmer »

I think you need a good income to have that kind of outlook on taxation
It certainly depends where you stand in income terms, and what commitments you have in terms of outgoings - it’s not unreasonable for people to have children, for instance, and it’s pretty reasonable to expect to put a roof over your head, and food on the table etc.

But, it is also true that, if we want European-style public services, which I certainly do, then they have to be pad for.

The fairest system is properly progressive taxation, and it may be that our income tax system has too few bands. Maybe it needs to be graduated more.

I would also contend that the shops are still full of (almost entirely imported) “stuff” that we could all manage perfectly well without, which we are all buying to varying degrees, which tells me that there is “taxable capacity” in the system somewhere.

If you look at countries with flatter spreads of incomes, not only do they tend to have better public services, people tend to be happier due simply to the greater equality. Some of those countries also have a far better “earning base” than we do though, so that has to be factored-in as well - the “size of the cake” thing has a germ of truth in it, and our national cake is depressingly small.

The big “but” is that we’ve got used to hyper-consumerism, private wealth, and public poverty, and any readjustment would be uncomfortable enough for enough people that voting it through will not be a simple matter - it will be campaigned against not just by the mega-rich, who it is easy to demonise, but a good part of the middlingly-comfortably-off too.
Dingdong
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Joined: 22 Apr 2022, 4:59pm

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Dingdong »

I've seen some monsters of scooters around town. With twin halogen lamps and quite massive looking batteries. They don't hang aboit either :lol:
Dingdong
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Joined: 22 Apr 2022, 4:59pm

Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by Dingdong »

Some of these scooters will do 100mph!

https://envyride.com/fastest-electric-scooter/
mattsccm
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Re: Dangerous e-scooters?

Post by mattsccm »

I do wonder if we could funded a stand alone traffic policing system.Stick a zero or more on every fine and take vehicles caught doing over , say 10%, more than the limited are taken and sold off.Should we get to the point it isn't self funding then it probably isn't needed.
Snag with scooters is that they are cheap enough to be kids toys whereas ebikes are not .
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