Prague bans shared e-scooters from 2026 over ‘chaos’ on sidewalks

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/prague-bans-shared-e-scooters-from-2026-over-chaos-on-sidewalks/

117 points · 26 comments · view on lemmy.world

26 Comments

NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org · 21 pts · 321d (10 replies)

If someone did the exact same business model just with cars instead of e-scooters they would probably be celebrated instead of banned.

SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 321d (1 reply)

Carsharing exists

NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org · -2 pts · 320d

In Prague, specifically?

remon@ani.social · 8 pts · 321d (5 replies)

If you would just leave your rental cars sitting in the middle of the road you'd be fined and shut down pretty quickly.

NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org · 5 pts · 320d (3 replies)

If a renter just leaves a car or scooter sitting in the middle of a road or walkway, the company should pass the fine for that to them. And if no fines for that exist yet, why not start with introducing them instead of a blanket ban?

MaggiWuerze@feddit.org · 5 pts · 320d

Difference is nobody can easily carry your car somewhere you didnt put it or kick it over so it lays in the middle of the road. Scooter companies already make you take a photo of where and how you parked it. But nothing keeps you or anyone else from just throwing it around after you parked it

remon@ani.social · 1 pts · 319d (1 reply)

I'm all for trying that, but I think it will end with the same result.

This will basically turn these rental companies into debt-collection agencies that would have to try to collect fines from hundreds of people every day. I doubt that would be a viable business model.

NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org · 1 pts · 318d

Not sure if there is a difference based on local culture or amount of drunk tourists, but just some small reminders in the apps and sometimes requiring that you take a photo of how you parked at the end of a trip was enough to get all of this under control in my home city.

slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org · 2 pts · 321d

Or drive it in a river as a goof

reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 321d (1 reply)

AAA did a similar service with cars in my area and someone did one with mopeds but both those seem to have died. I had to call AAA several times because people parked the cars blocking my apt building’s driveway so the inconvenient clutter issue seems to scale for some reason. The scooter/ebike service that’s survived so far in my area will unload a whole fleet in the middle of a busy sidewalk and just leave them there it really is quite badly managed. The docked (Lyft) bikes are much less of a nuisance clutter-wise but aren’t well maintained so people don’t use them much.

princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 320d

Should've just called a tow tbh.

JustJack23@slrpnk.net · 14 pts · 321d (2 replies)

I support this, they are usually parked very bad and annoying to go around.

treadful@lemmy.zip · 23 pts · 321d

Yeah, cars suck

Ontimp@feddit.org · 4 pts · 320d

Yes but banning them is not the solution. E.g. in Frankfurt, Germany, we just have parking zones in the city center, usually by train stations. You cannot start or end a ride from anywhere else inside the city center. This has much improved the degree of chaos created.

snoons@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 321d (6 replies)

I suppose Prague does not have dedicated bike lanes.

gian@lemmy.grys.it · 21 pts · 321d (3 replies)

If it is like in Italy, the problem is not where you drive it but where you leave it at the end of your ride

Junkers_Klunker@feddit.dk · 7 pts · 321d (2 replies)

That’s the exact problem here in Denmark, they’ll get thrown everywhere in especially inconsiderate ways like across the sidewalks or something stupid like that.

Ontimp@feddit.org · 3 pts · 320d (1 reply)

True, but banning them altogether seems like the wrong and a somewhat backwards lesson to take from that

Junkers_Klunker@feddit.dk · 1 pts · 319d

They shouldn’t be banned, but there must be some way to force either the company or the user to make sure they’re parked in a way that isn’t across the sidewalks.

rainwall@piefed.social · 11 pts · 321d (1 reply)

It's maybe the most car centric city in Europe. The urbanist Adam something has an indepth video on it.

snoons@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 321d

:`(

Hawke@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 321d

They have scooters from the future??

What technological breakthroughs in e-scooter technology have been achieved in the next year?

argh_another_username@lemmy.ca · -6 pts · 321d (3 replies)

I’ve been to cities that use e-scooters and I’ve never seen “chaos”. In fact, I saw very few “tossed” on the ground.

princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 320d (1 reply)

They don't need to be tossed on the ground to cause chaos, and if you're abled bodied you might not have noticed the inconvenience because you can easily manoeuvre around them. As a wheelchair user, they are a bane on my existence. I've taken to just pushing them out of the way, often into the street. Maybe I should get a cowcatcher for my chair.

Lumisal@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 320d

If I may make a suggestion...

banause@feddit.org · 1 pts · 321d

I swear it's just attentional bias for most people. You are so used to other things and uniterested in "well-behaved" scooters, that you think there is chaos.