
Bird, Lime and Spin Receive Cease-And-desist Letters from SF City Attorney - sethbannon
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/bird-lime-and-spin-receive-cease-and-desist-letters-from-sf-city-attorney/amp/
======
DogOnTheWeb
I joined the supervisor hearing today late, but there was important context
there that is missing in this article.

\- They mentioned several companies that were waiting for permits to launch,
and applauded companies like Scoot (which is planning to launch e-bikes) and
Waybots for working with them.

\- They mentioned that SFMTA was first contacted about these scooters to in
February and immediately began working on a permit process which is due to
begin next month. That's light speed for a government agency.

\- The only reason there was a sudden rush in deployment was that one company
(Bird or Lime) decided to jump the gun and launch on St. Patrick's Day. The
others that deployed didn't want to lose first mover advantage. At least one
of these three hadn't even contacted SFMTA until after deployment.

\- Lime did not even send a representative to the meeting at all. Apparently
they decided to just contact TechCrunch after the fact.

The supervisors were rough on them and Aaron Peskin even had the nerve to call
them "techbros", but they brought this on themselves by trying to use the old
"move fast and break things" play that this city has seen before.

~~~
dexwiz
I'm confused on why a launch with proper permits and communication with the
city would change the situation. All the same complaints about clutter, bad
riders, and sidewalk/road disruption would still be valid.

The idea of an "ownernless" vehicle is flawed. They seem cheap, and so they
are a treated like trash. Only if the companies picked them everyday to
charge, repair, and redistributed would this work. That maygive them some
intrinsic value, and people might respect them enough to not properly park and
care for them. However, this is not the case. No one wants a business whose
model is to litter the city with trash.

~~~
taneq
> I'm confused on why a launch with proper permits and communication with the
> city would change the situation.

Level playing field? It sounds like several companies did the right thing and
worked with the authorities to make sure they didn't cause trouble, and then
the three in TFA jumped the gun and launched anyway.

As a governing body, you can't allow that precedent to stand. If "ignore
regulations and do it anyway" becomes an optimal strategy then everyone will
do it and your commons will be tragic.

~~~
tapatio
Everyone already does it. It is the optimal strategy.

------
brezina
The two largest complaints in cities with scooter sharing are (1) users riding
on the sidewalk because they don’t feel safe on the road and (2) users parking
on the sidewalk because all street space for storing personal mobility devices
is allocated to 4,000 lb cars. A climate conscious city can get more people
using zero emission vehicles like bikes and scooters and solve the issues
above by (1) creating protected bike lanes so scooter users of all ages and
abilities feel safe riding on the street and (2) converting one or two car
street parking spots on every block to bike and scooter parking.

However, street parking has been a 3rd rail of local politics in American
cities. Demographics are pointing to change: last year SF added 8,500
residents but car registrations dropped by 1,800. More protected bike lanes,
less personal cars, more ride sharing/autonomous cars and more scooters is the
future - most boomer politicians running American cities today just don’t get
this yet - they and their friends live in highly appreciated SFHs,have a
personal car and a place to store said car, maintain a low prop13 tax rate,
and reminisce of 1974 when people were moving out of cities and they could
always find free parking right in front of their favorite restaurant. But the
demographics are changing, our streets will transform as a result and for the
sake of our planet, it couldn’t happen soon enough

~~~
ncr100
The government is attempting to do its function and protect the populace.

These companies have done things which violate the government's rules.

Imagine a bug where you fix it incorrectly and it spawns Two more bugs. That
is what is going on here, and being discussed in this post.

How should technology companies work with governments when both:

A- deployment of their tech is most likely to violate the law, and

B- the Market Opportunity is most likely to be spoiled by a competitor
deploying first

What should that company do? Break things and ask for forgiveness? Budget for
lawsuits and ship first? Or adhere to the law, working with the system?

------
sgrove
Infuriating, I'm a huge fan of these services. I initially thought they would
just be toys, but they've removed any uber/lyft around the city for me -
they're both faster and cheaper, they park just like bicycles, they don't
cause any noise pollution, and they completely eliminate last-mile carbon
output.

Sometimes SF is an infuriating place.

~~~
apotheothesomai
The city is just trying to ensure that the vehicles don't end up abandoned by
riders all over the place. This has been a problem with bike and scooter
services in many cities globally.

They are giving the companies plenty of time to respond with a plan to address
that issue. They're not going to be shut down. They just need to be more
responsible for the impact on public places, because we humans are sadly too
self-focused to b conscientious.

Hell, the city will probably build more bike racks to accommodate them.

~~~
mike_h
I think it’s bigger than that. There’s a massive FUD meme around dockless
technology: the only time it’s in the news is to show the random landfills a
few of them end up in, ignoring the 99% that have made millions of lives
easier. Dockless bikeshare went from 0 to 200 million riders in just two
years, in a country where everybody already owned a bike. This is a technology
that makes cities more accessible in a way you can’t imagine til you
experience it. But people point to a few left out of place and tell us it’s
going to kill our grannies.

~~~
DrScump

      a few left out of place
    

Dockless bikes are, by definition, _all_ left out of place.

~~~
CalRobert
If only people could store them with ease at the side of the street; perhaps
paying a fee while they use the land.

You could travel around the city, leave your bike there, and come back and
continue your journey!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking)

~~~
DrScump

      store them with ease at the side of the street; perhaps paying a fee while they use the land
    

Then it's no longer a _sharing_ model; it's a "I want 24/7 control of a bike
but only pay for while I'm riding it and park it anywhere without
consequences" model.

Which would be handy, but it wouldn't scale well from a business standpoint.

~~~
CalRobert
For what it's worth that is exactly how car sharing works in my city and it's
doing well, and growing.

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aphextron
I've seen these pop up all over the bay and in LA recently. More often than
not they end up immediately abandoned all over public spaces as soon as they
run out of batteries or the first free ride is over. Bird particularly seems
the worst. The scooters are really under powered and have tiny batteries with
seemingly nobody maintaining or charging them, so they just end up laying
around. You also get completely inexperienced riders with zero safety
equipment driving around in the streets causing issues. It's just another
example of a short sighted attempt to arbitrage the public well being for
private profit.

------
Zhenya
This is rich coming from SF, where homeless tents, needles and human excrement
are abound:

“creating a public nuisance on The City’s streets and sidewalks and
endangering public health and safety.”

~~~
almost_usual
You’re comparing people with mental disabilities and drug problems to highly
educated individuals who shipped a product to the public haphazardly to make a
quick buck. They should have known better.

~~~
baddox
That’s true, but I don’t think the comparison has anything to do with the
people who cause the problems. The comparison is the significance of the
public nuisance and health hazard.

------
sethbannon
Worth pointing out that not all electric scooter companies chose to disregard
city regulations. Waybots has made the choice to work with cities to get
approval before launching. Seems like a better approach, and one likely to
give them a big advantage long-term. I believe they're still the only legally
operating electric scooter sharing company in the US (currently live in DC
where they got permission to launch).

------
carapace
These scooters are all over my neighborhood. Most of the time they are parked
reasonably. Sometimes they fall over. But they suffer from the "dog shit"
problem: there are enough inconsiderate riders who leave the scooters in
stupid places that it's going to piss people off. You don't notice the well-
parked scooters.

The big issue I see with them is that the people riding them are often unsafe.
They don't come with helmets. I've also seen some pretty reckless driving,
both in traffic and on the sidewalk.

------
URSpider94
I think you’re going to see cities acting much more quickly to clamp down on
services like this. They have realized that Uber and Airbnb got the proverbial
elephant’s nose under the tent, by the time they got around to trying to
regulate them it was too late.

FWIW, I think dockless bike/scooter share is a great idea, but having seen
what a mess it has become in China, there do need to be some ground rules so
that pedestrians aren’t having to step over piles of them to walk down the
street.

~~~
mike_h
Have you seen piles of them on the street yourself? I never have, in Beijing,
Shanghai, or Xiamen. People are 99% considerate; the 1% who aren’t make for
better photos. The frictionless utility of dockless has brought so much ease
and joy to these cities that any marginal, occasional mess appears far
outweighed to me, and anyone I’ve ever talked to.

~~~
nrser
I live in Beijing, and the bike and scooter shares are _everywhere_ ,
including blocking sidewalks and in huge piles and it’s absoultly great.
They’ve been a terrific improvement. It’s great to use them, and it’s great to
see so many other people using them.

Yeah, they’re kind of a pain to deal with them sometimes, but it turns out you
can just move the bikes, and walk or ride around the piles. I have yet to see
anyone get stuck in a pile. And somehow even people that don’t use the bikes
seem to be able to lend some value to the idea that other people do (this was
very strange to me at first, having grown up in the Bay Area).

Beijing _is_ pretty much the perfect city for them though... completely flat
and ridiculous spacious and open (except parts of the old city). I can see it
being more painful in tighter cities. But they’ll figure the piles problem
out; it’s already gotten better, and the net benefit has been pretty large.

------
lev99
I hope Seattle follows SF's example, as unlikely as that is in the local
climate.

Seattle's current adoption of bike sharing is, in large part, an effort to
reduce carbon emissions and too make more use of our roads. I am 100% for
doing both of these things, but I think Bike Share programs are not the best
path. Deals where University of Washington Medical Center provides employees
(noticeable) extra pay for biking to work, and removing minimum parking laws
in more areas are the best way to move away from car transport. Even the
downtown toll will be more effective at reducing car rides than bike share
programs. Bike shares pollute sidewalks, are too slow for any distance more
than two miles, and too heavy for going up Seattle's hills. In addition I
believe they encourage the dangerous (and locally illegal) practice of biking
without a helmet. Finally, I think Seattle's DoT has higher expectations for
bike share programs than will actually pan out. I wish data on their usage was
more public.

~~~
nraynaud
There is no danger to others in biking without a helmet.

The helmet issue is mostly something to try to get at biking people, it is not
a public health issue. That why all warning are worded along the line: “helmet
prevent head injuries” (like knee pad limit knee injuries), and not “helmet
improves general outcomes”.

Most studies agree that head injury absent a car strike are rare and are
compensated by the long term benefits over the population. The most dangerous
thing in a bike is the surrounding cars.

~~~
URSpider94
This, this, this. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wears a helmet when cycling in
the Netherlands - not five-year-olds and certainly not adults, and absolutely
everyone cycles everywhere. Yes, people do die of bike injuries, but the
number is surprisingly small, something like 160 people per year out of a
country of 16 million.

~~~
walshemj
The UK with a much much bigger population than the Netherlands and worse
cycling provision has 102 fatalities - sound's like you have a problem.

~~~
opencl
The UK has a much bigger population but far few people actually regularly
cycling. A quarter of the population in the Netherlands commutes by bike.
Compared to the UK they have approximately 1/4 the population but the average
person bikes 10x more.

[https://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/9F9F3F71-9324-46D3-AD7E-076C...](https://www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/9F9F3F71-9324-46D3-AD7E-076C59F8392D/0/2015factsheetnederlandfietsland_ENG.pdf)

[https://www.cyclinguk.org/resources/cycling-uk-cycling-
stati...](https://www.cyclinguk.org/resources/cycling-uk-cycling-statistics)

------
eecc
I don’t understand how these companies don’t get that a public space is meant
to be used, not abused.

If they want to disseminate their vehicles around public spaces so much better
but they _must_ at least coordinate with the administrators to do it in an
orderly fashion.

IOW, get a permit, pay rent and install sidewalk parking racks. Public free
ones are for occasional individual use.

------
jonah
Jalopnik tried to use Bird and came away with a pretty dim view of the
experience:

[https://jalopnik.com/i-tried-san-franciscos-electric-
scooter...](https://jalopnik.com/i-tried-san-franciscos-electric-scooter-
share-and-it-wa-1825275906)

------
Reedx
It's interesting, I wouldn't have thought this is a business that could work.
Expensive scooters left on sidewalks. Bikes get stolen constantly and are a
lot bigger, and could have a tracking device on it.

What keeps them from being stolen and the GPS disabled?

~~~
fipple
I think the bigger problem with the business model is that the things break
down constantly. I usually have to check >5 of them to find one that works.

------
dawhizkid
I haven’t used these yet but I’m very happy with Jump electric bikes, which
seems more appropriate for med-long distances and a lot cheaper ($4hr vs
$9-10hr for Bird)

------
thurn
Where do they source their scooters from? they seem pretty high quality, you'd
think they were pretty expensive. I'd like to buy one myself.

~~~
trevorcreech
Bird and Spin both use this model: [https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Xiaomi-MI-M365-electr...](https://www.alibaba.com/product-
detail/Xiaomi-MI-M365-electric-scooter-folding_60679640505.html)

------
philip1209
Just landed in SF an hour ago. I had read about the controversy, but I hadn't
expected to see the scooters everywhere so far. Soma, FiDi, and North Beach.
Some had headlights on that made them obvious in the dark. It's a very visible
phenomenon, partially because I thought that anything like that left on the
sidewalk in SF got stolen.

(Neither for nor against - just an observation)

------
Animats
So who recharges all these things? Do they credit people if they bring it to a
charging station, or what?

~~~
r27d
They were paying gig economy workers to collect them after 8pm, charge 10-30
at a time in their apartments, and redistribute from 5-8am. They paid some of
these people to show up today and talk about how great it pays. I really wish
they could talk to some Uber drivers from 2010.

~~~
csisvunit
I wouldn't call chargers gig economy workers when Bird only credits $5/per
scooter. That's not an income.

------
dude3
Was a fan too. I haven’t seen any knocked over

------
odammit
I think the biggest problem is they make you look like a douchebag but feel
like a hipster.

That’s a wreckless combination the world isn’t ready for.

------
lifeisstillgood
Major props to the SF Transport authority who is moving fast, breaking
business models and generally acting like the adult in the room.

Looks like SF is in good hands.

NB I thought Bird, Lime and Spin in the title was a firm of lawyers or maybe
PR people. Could you adjust the title to "e-scooter rental startups get cease
and desist orders from SF City" or something. :-)

------
themark
So they are going to allocate city resources to seize and impound them? NIMBYs
win again.

------
fosk
SF is a city thriving with homelessness, drug abuse on the streets, dangerous
needles and human shit everywhere. Glad to see they are spending time on
things that matter.

Among other things, on 6th street there are people sleeping in the middle of
the sidewalk, peeing on walls, camping in front of liquor stores and
barbecuing illegally on the sidewalk (!) in broad daylight. Yet the fabulous
city administration considers electrical scooters to be the topic of the day.

------
raz32dust
I definitely support the need to regulate these services. On the one hand, I
have often wanted such a service in SF. That I should not have to worry about
parking or racking is a key requirement. At the same time, it doesn't seem
fair to allow private companies to litter the streets with junk. Partnership
with government is crucial. I am quite happy with the way things are turning
out - they launch first, government reacts quickly to regulate them, and now
they work with the government to figure out solutions. The other alternative -
them getting permits first - would never work fast enough in practice.

------
rdiddly
I don't understand the appeal of services like these. If I had billions of
dollars to start companies strictly for ironic/satirical purposes, I'd start
one for sunglasses sharing. For those who find it too much of an onerous
burden and a logistical nightmare to maintain and store a pair of sunglasses
in between uses.

Seriously though, why rely on the vagaries of supply and demand on somebody's
network, and their maintenance diligence and so on, for a thing that you can
own so cheaply, and always have there when you need it? It just has never made
sense to me.

The exception of course is for tourists who didn't bring their scooters or
bikes along. I have considered it in that case... though never actually did
it. I just walked.

~~~
URSpider94
Really?

1\. No money down: a decent bike is $700+, a bike share is $3 per ride or
under $100 per year

2\. No maintenance: someone else keeps the tires full and the chain lubed. If
something breaks, you just park the bike and get another one.

3\. No theft: bikes get stolen when they are parked. When a bike share is
parked, it’s not your problem.

4\. No parking hassles: finding a safe place to park your bike in the city is
tough. Many buildings don’t provide bike storage. Try carrying your bike up
and down from a 5th floor walk-up every day.

5\. One-way trip: you rode to work this morning, and now it’s raining. No
problem, take the bus home.

Don’t believe me, just ask New Yorkers, who are taking an average of 40,000
rides per day on the city’s 12,000 citibikes.

~~~
rdiddly
Yeah I know about Citibike, Velib, Capital Bikeshare, and the Nike ones in
Portland, all of which are part of how I ended up accumulating enough
experience of the topic to end up baffled that they're actually popular. But
from your comments I realize it's about avoiding a commitment. And I'm not
trying to sound as judgmental as that probably sounds. It's to enable you to
NOT own a bike. But for reference here's how I've dealt with your five issues:

1\. My current bike cost $550 new, 6 years ago, so that would've been less
than $100/yr, if I hadn't replaced parts and spent more. But I get unlimited
rides. And it'll last another 20 years if I'm not a fad-follower and don't get
reckless or unlucky.

2\. I do it myself, that way I'm the one in control of when it fails to get
done.

3\. Always lock it. Never had a problem. Having a cheap $550 bike probably
helps.

4\. Yep America's like that. I carry mine up & down from the 3rd floor. If I
move I'll choose not to live above the 3rd floor. Or maybe I'll live on the
5th floor after all, and become a bad-ass with huge calves and five flights of
endurance.

5\. I wear rain gear.

~~~
1moronposting
This is a silly argument. Some people don't want to do the thing you do. They
are willing to pay for it. You do want to do the thing you do. You're willing
to pay for it.

~~~
rdiddly
You would probably find it less silly if you stopped mischaracterizing it as
an argument.

