
The dockless scooter industry is going after a repossessor and a bike shop owner - Tomte
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/24/20696405/dockless-scooters-share-repo-men-repossessor-lawsuit-tow-yard-lime-bird-lyft-uber-razor
======
rdtsc
> they’ve recently caught juicers breaking into a ScootScoop impound storage
> unit, going after the Lime scooters specifically. The juicers allegedly
> became violent when confronted

> they [juicers] had broken into his storage unit and were holding scooters,
> he says. Heinkel confronted them, trying to grab the scooters back. He says
> that one of the workers, a man who towered over Heinkel, punched him a few
> times. Then he got on the scooter and started riding it toward Heinkel

That read like some kind of a Mad Max scene. It's just so bizarre.

------
javagram
Scooters should have docks or designated parking areas.

The concept is cool but, like dockless bikeshare, the execution has been a
mess resulting in littering all over public sidewalks and also apparently over
private property.

I’m not sure I trust repo guys and tow companies not to fraudulently tow the
scooters though.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"Scooters should have docks or designated parking areas."

Why only designated parking areas? Why not allow scooters (and bicycles) to
park anywhere that cars can?

~~~
Nasrudith
Well that would still technically be a designated parking area - if an
overlapping one. Cars have them as well.

The main reason why not is if there are other non-disruptive locations for it
they should be parked there first. Better to have bikes on bike racks before
they start taking street spaces for instance.

~~~
hisnameisjimmy
Why non-disruptive? Cars take up massive amounts of space. They can stand to
be inconvenienced a tiny amount.

~~~
rednixion
Because more often than not only a small amount of organization is actually
needed to stop scooters and bikes from being in way of people using the
sidewalk?

~~~
hisnameisjimmy
If that was actually the case, we should see huge amounts of space devoted to
bicycles at this point. We do not. If you’ve ever ridden in the city and had
the only three bike rings for a full block taken up, you share the
frustration.

------
mcraiha
"When I call them in July, Heinkel and Borelli say that they recently
celebrated impounding their 10,360th scooter with some donuts and large
coffees from 7/11."

Assuming that they win in court, and companies won't pay the "ransoms", they
have at least a Million Dollar Inventory.

------
opwieurposiu
The GPS logs should show if this tow company has removed from public property.

~~~
olodus
And using that the companies should possibly also be able to charge costumers
that leave the scooter in bad places an extra fee. Or maybe do that after a
complaint is made to the scooter company.

------
kevin_b_er
Cheers to the repo man in this case. The scooters are left like trash
everywhere. The scooter companies know they're left everywhere like trash. The
public and semi-public places are being used as free storage by the scooter
companies. They abuse the public resources to make money. If their junk is
left on private property, then repo it. If they're going to argue under the
vehicle code the scooters can't be repo'd, I'd like to know when you can't tow
a car parked on your business's sidewalk.

------
qweqwetf2erf
In the US, the towing industry is a racket on its own. I'm not sure if it's
good that one public nuisance is trying to get the upper-hand on another
public nuisance.

------
benj111
I assume the endgame for the scooter companies is to get big enough before
regulation kicks in and they're forced to add docks of some kind, but so are
potential competitors. That would be a nice little moat for them.

I wonder therefore how long it takes before one of the companies thinks they
can gain an advantage by getting first dibs on dock locations.

------
hjk05
The scooters have GPS, have the companies required by law to send out
representatives to clean up any scooter on private property that hasn't
explicitly given permission for them to be there, and allow the city to mark
of any public area they want as forbidden as well.

------
i_rawr_u
At the end of the day, I'm surprised cities have embraced these scooters with
open arms.

~~~
zupzupper
Most haven't actually. The modus operandi of the scooter companies seems to
be:

1\. Drop a load of scooters around town in the middle of the night

2\. Wait for the city to take notice

3\. Apply for permit after the fact

They're very much in the "Easier to ask forgiveness than permission" game
right now.

------
Fins
Good, we need more folks like these in every other city these obnoxious things
had been unleashed upon.

