Man dies after being knocked down by woman on scooter | Hacker News Reader

Man dies after being knocked down by woman on scooter

abc7.com

32 pointslxm32 comments

This is why you don't let motor vehicles operate in pedestrian areas. Move fast and break things should not be a part of public policy.

I do some inline skating in foot traffic areas and the speed disparity is still dangerous - motor free. I try to be incredibly polite and courteous of the pedestrian traffic because I don't want skating to be banned, but there are plenty of folks out there that just DGAF about anyone other than themselves and/or haven't even considered that someone else may have a different perspective.

The problem is that there are all sorts of different forms of transport these days (with a few levels of speed differential), but the infrastructure is primarly designed around cars. Even bicycle paths and lanes are essentially subservient, and often poorly thought-out additions, to car infrastructure.

"Poorly thought-out" is an understatement. There are some absolutely insane "we painted lines and that counts as infrastructure" designs out there: https://momentummag.com/a-look-at-some-of-the-worst-bike-lan...

we have these scooters in my (very touristy) town. they make an annoying “bing bong avoid sidewalks” sound when driven on the sidewalk, but that’s it. they don’t limit the speed to something annoying/reasonable like 3-4kph. tourists constantly blasting by people on the sidewalk, it’s not surprising to me that this sort of thing happens.

Replace a car lane with two bike/scooter lanes (one slow, one fast) with hard dividers, and you eliminate this problem and make life better for most people at the same time.

In America, everyone will be in the "fast" lane.

The whole reason many people ride bikes on the sidewalk is that even 25 mph streets are too fast for their comfort.

If it's a down slope or even a flat grade when the road's in good condition, maintaining the speed isn't that difficult for an experienced cyclist on a decent road bike.

My experience has been that many drives in the US at least get downright angry when they see cyclists, honking at you and even occasionally running you off the road. And that's when they notice you. Even on roads with dedicated bike lanes, I've been run off the road both by people who've noticed me and by those who didn't when they drift into the bike lane.

If we're talking traditional bike transportation, I'd gladly take the slow lane. My goal would be getting to where I'm going faster than walking without being sweaty and out of breath.

Those look like Lime scooters, right? It seems like with a time and location, Lime ought to be able to identify whose account was used to rent the scooters. They store a GPS trace for every ride.

> Anyone with information is urged to contact police.

These scooters are tracked in real time and linked with an account containing your name, credit card, and even an ID. Cross reference the active scooters with the time of the fatal incident and area/street.

LAPD truly is incompetent. I don’t doubt that it was likely a drunk tourist as well and have probably flown back to their shit hole while the LAPD is still asking the public for help.

It seems to be mistakes and bad luck all around. The crash seems to be poor driving rather than deliberate recklessness*, running away is an odd and risky behavior (one would hope, in terms of legal consequences) in addition to being wrong, and refusing medical treatment was a huge mistake.

* Based on this part: “Donny and Jenny Kim stepped onto the sidewalk. They didn't see the woman on the scooter coming.”

The implication from the story seems to be that they stuck around, but the man told them he was ok. Whether they decided to leave, or whether he insisted they leave isn't stated in the article. And then the man experienced an episode of vomiting the following day, passed out, and never recovered consciousness.

Whether that's technically and/or legally a hit-and-run is -- I suppose -- something that police will "have to investigate".

That isn't my reading of it.

> "I told her, 'You stay here, [the] police are coming,'" she recalled. "She's not supposed to run. She said, 'I'm not going nowhere, I'm here,' and then she [left]."

> Both the woman and the man on the scooters fled before officers or paramedics arrived to the scene.

My reading is that since she left before the paramedics arrived, that was before they insisted that he's OK.

Those scooter riders suck! Both for riding irresponsibly AND especially for riding away. But these incidents can be reduced (if not eliminated) with a bike lane where they could be separated from both pedestrians and cars.

Comes down to the present infrastructure and "arrogance of space" that forces everyone who does not want to ride 25mph+ or get crushed by a tank to ride in the remaining 10% of space.

Who flags this? Why?

Everyone needs to see this to be more careful walking on sidewalks. Those who does this needs to see this to wake up and see you can kill someone doing this.

I would flag this because of this non-news. There's 10 people who died on the roads by car while writing this post.

You don't wanna minimise such accidents to 0, similar to how you can't do 0% credit card fraud.

The victim refused to go to the hospital, which seems to be a major factor. Would he have done so if he wasn't scared of the financial impact?

There is a scooter person who rides up and down my street at around 45MPH every morning and evening. It's so fast the whole thing is over in about 3 seconds, I don't think you could safely even flag them down.

Ok, not great.

But who the heck would do this on a sidewalk? As a society we can't give people powerful tools with no training and then be surprised when they mow down other humans.

Who should be liable? The operators or manufacturers, or both?

This episode is tragically sad, and I'm certain it's not the first time.

> But who the heck would do this on a sidewalk?

People who don't want to get run over by a car.

There's no mystery here. It's exactly the same reason people ride bikes on the sidewalk: they feel unsafe about sharing space with cars, and believe they can safely share sidewalk space with pedestrians. They're even usually correct on the second point.

I personally have never been able to cycle at 45mph. I applaud you though if that seems normal to you.

The electric scooters shown in the pictures in the article usually go at most about 15 mph.

It's fair to feel unsafe and vulnerable on the street against cars, but when I used to ride my bike on the sidewalk in SF I kept it at walking speeds, because I don't want accidentally murdering someone to be part of my personal life story.

Going 20-25+MPH on a pedestrian sidewalk is Not A Good Idea, ever.

The electric scooters shown in the pictures in the article usually go at most about 15 mph.

Oh, then it's fine?

It's not "fine", but it's an absolutely predictable result of road and sidewalk design and just morally finger-wagging isn't going to stop it from happening again.

15 MPH is still pretty fast. It's easily attainable on a human-powered bike, but it's rarely comfortable to do so on a sidewalk because you can't settle into a good cadence.

The problem with electric scooters/e-bikes is that the motor makes it comfortable to go at top speed everywhere mindlessly.

You can run this fast. People likely died from being hit by runners. Or skaters, rollerbladers, segways, mobility scooters, walkers. Whats your suggestion for these?

With every new mode of transport is going to have some stats attributed to them. Do more people die on bikes or scooters or cars?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com