There are no locking stations for the scooters (as there are for bike rental systems like B-Cycle). The scooters are just lying around all over the place, so what prevents people from just swiping them?There's a mobile phone app for unlocking the electric motor and charging the scooterer, but there needs also to be a way to stop people from picking up the locked scooter and throwing it in a car, perhaps with the idea of figuring out how to hack into it or reworking it somehow or just to make mischief.
What can the scooter company do? One company, Lime, had the idea of making the scooter detect that it's being moved without unlocking and to shout, "Unlock me to ride me, or I’ll call the police."
The threat immediately repeats on high volume and is the first and only sound the scooter makes. The words blare after less than a minute of a person standing on and exploring the buttons of the scooters....Whether the scooter actually can and does call the police is another matter. Given Lime's iffy legal status — they're just going ahead and dumping lots of scooters on sidewalks without prior authorization — I can't believe they'd set the controversial vehicles to robocall the police. The taxpayers should pay for this police work?! What's the price of a police intervention compared to the price of the damned scooter?!
The kicker is that Lime stands accused of racism.
“This is not only an annoying noise, this is a threat to people. For black people, that can really be experienced as a death threat,” said [ Oakland councilmember Rebecca] Kaplan, who is crafting legislation to regulate the scooters and now plans to add a proposal to prohibit loud noises and threats...
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If you call the police because you fear an intruder in your house better make sure he's not black before you call the cops. Otherwise, it's attempted murder.
"Unlock me, or I'll blow myself up" might be a more credible threat, without involving the police or the BLM.
Donald Trump looking to NFL kneelers to tell him what people have been unfairly treated by the justice system. Name the people you think are victims of racism.
Surprised the company even dumps the scooters in Oakland.
Every time I think we have reached Peak Racial Hysteria, I am shown that there are simply no limits to the human imagination. A squawking bicycle is a death threat? This in a society that has lived - somehow - with blaring car alarms for 40 years. It's a wonder they haven't prompted mass suicide.
Take good notes on this scooter company. It is going to feature in the Harvard B School curriculum under "You're Doing It Wrong: The New Service Business Model."
It may also feature in a course on the financial boom-bust cycle, as an indicator of extreme Bubble conditions, but we will have to see how that goes.
There's not even the slightest attempt to reason before reflexively calling this racist. It's beyond parody.
"Unlock me to ride me, or I'll call the police!" Sounds like something Stormy Daniels would say.
More seriously: is that a kind of extortion? The person hearing it has a choice: PAY ME MONEY FOR SOMETHING YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T WANT, OR FACE POSSIBLE ARREST.
But is the statement intentional? It is engineered anonymously in advance by a human for general use, and is not directed at the actual person who may hear it. It is no more intentional than a car alarm. But it purports to be a specific threat aimed at a specific person. Who is supposed to be intimidated, that is feel fear and do what it commands.
Never mind the racism angle, this is some kind of assault case here. Why, I feel macro-aggressed against, just thinking about it.
So one morning you wake up to find one of these contraptions abandoned on your front yard. You pick it up to throw it somewhere else, and it threatens you with arrest. Time to break out the sledge hammer.
Stupid for sure for the scooter to call police, but can someone explain how it is racist? Honestly don't get it. Not like it only says that if the person stealing it is black.
Ryan: apparently the racism is not on the sender end of the message, i.e. the actual words, but on the listener (subjective) end. The argument seems to be that a POC listener will experience the message differently, and feel the cold grip of sheer terror when the dreaded word "police" is uttered, which will cause palpitations and incontinence, and years of night sweats. Reparations are due.
One person introduced the concept of racism: “This is not only an annoying noise, this is a threat to people. For black people, that can really be experienced as a death threat,” said [ Oakland councilmember Rebecca] Kaplan
Amazing how much power is given over to someone making perhaps what could be an inane comment.
Maybe people like that need to be ignored, not made a main feature of the narrative.
Ryan said...
"Stupid for sure for the scooter to call police, but can someone explain how it is racist? Honestly don't get it. Not like it only says that if the person stealing it is black."
Well, you see, the person stealing it is black. So, that makes it racist.
Wait, so we aren't allowed to say "police" now?
And what is "POC"- is that a nice way to say piece of crap?
“Surprised the company even dumps the scooters in Oakland”
This. The only way their business model has a ghost of a chance is to confine it to high-trust, affluent (OK, I’ll say it. White) areas. Kaplan isn’t wrong about the racism inherent in the business. It was never started with Black folks in mind, and I would bet the company itself is lily-white.
Even where I live, every 18 year-old Cracker with a pick-up and a full toolbox would be scooping those babies up and hauling them off to their rural garages and pole barns to figure out how to bypass whatever security is built into them. And they would figure it out in amazingly short order. The next day there would be a Reddit subforum on the subject.
They’ve arrived in St. Louis, along with surveillance videos of of youths that might look a lot like Obama’s sons beating the locking device off with locally sourced bricks.
But really in a city like this it’s difficult to imagine that the local police could be drafted into the role of being the rental bike security force.
They have much bigger fish to fry.
But let’s us just imagine one of these limebikes is legitimately rented, and ridden into the “wrong part of town” how can it ever hope to escape?
Stupid for sure for the scooter to call police, but can someone explain how it is racist? Honestly don't get it. Not like it only says that if the person stealing it is black.
It’s BLM taken several degrees past stupid.
See, there's this thing. You can sign up to be a charging person. At the end of the day, your cell phone tells you that there's a scooter in a particular place. You go, bring it home, charge it using the company supplied charger, bring it to a designated place, and you earn $5. But then there are folks with a pickup, who just grab any scooter they see any time, and hold on to it for the rest of the day. They charge, deliver, and they make money--and the poor schlub who plays by the rules finds that the scooter isn't where the app says it is. Then, there's the folks who will tuck the scooter in their garage so they don't have to find one the next morning.
We have a hourly car rental company. They no longer allow their cars to be left in north Minneapolis, the vibrant part of town. Too many of them wound up there, and other customers either couldn't find one near them, or were wary of going into north Minnie to get one.
They no longer allow their cars to be left in north Minneapolis, the vibrant part of town.
Now...when you say, "vibrant"...
And what is "POC"- is that a nice way to say piece of crap?
Probably person/people of color
Is the argument that Black people have a right to steal the scooters?
"The kicker is that Lime stands accused of racism."
The hard bigotry of prog expectations.
Logical progression: (1) Scooter's anti-theft system sounds loud alarm and threatens to call the police if you mess with it for too long without downloading the app and paying. (2) ?. (3) Therefore, Scooter is racist.
There are many possibilities about what #2 could be, almost all insulting.
The damn bikes - from 3 competing companies! in Seattle are too big to be stuffed down storm drains ... but if the scooters ever get here I'll bet they'll fit ...
Although maybe we won't get the scooters. Some of the bikes - not many - are of the electric-assisted variety; maybe that's what they're trying out here.
(To be fair I do see people riding the bikes. Not nearly as many as I would have thought the bike companies needed in order to make any kind of money, or even to pay for the ongoing operations - e.g., people to move the bikes around and fix them up - but some people are riding the bikes.)
So now "racism" is defined as anything some idiot doesn't like, assuming the idiot in question is Black.
Maybe you shouldn't mess around with a strange scooter sitting on the sidewalk? If there's a weird object in a public area, my first instinct is to avoid it, my second instinct is to report it to authroites if it's a briefcase or dufflebag or something that looks like it could potentially contain some kind of bomb. My very last instinct would be to go over, touch it, and mess with it.
That's just me though, I guess. Apparently lots of people are curious kitties.
Scooter threatens to call the police. Blacks and women hardest hit.
SNL has be working on a Comedy Skit about this.
"For black people, that can really be experienced as a death threat," said [Oakland councilmember Rebecca] Kaplan, who is a lesbian and therefore doesn't care that the scooter-stuff, if it is anything, is far more sexist than racist by her primitive metrics, what with the 20:1 male:female ratio of getting shot by cops.
Nonapod: "Maybe you shouldn't mess around with a strange scooter sitting on the sidewalk?" My right of way as a pedestrian is obstructed by this pile of glorified litter but if I touch it the cops may bust my ass? Excuse me?
How long before the Jihadis figure out that bombs shaped like abandoned scooters can be left anywhere in NYC and people will even keep them charged up and ready to use?
"'For black people, that can really be experienced as a death threat,' said [countless lefties]"
Well, that strikes me as as a good thing as it will cause the would-be thief to reconsider his/her decision to steal? Not unlike concealed carry: attacking that person might be the last thing you ever do on this planet.
"...strange scooter sitting on the sidewalk...". This really is a tort waiting to happen. I may take my stroller out there and "accidentally" fall over this unexpected hazard. How does this company get insurance against claims arising from the (impossible to plan for) placement of its property by its customers (or by anyone: clearly their business model anticipates, maybe depends on, strangers moving their property at random around the public space). How many claims has it received? What has it paid out?
Business model:
1. Leave expensive, breakable assets all over other people's property.
2. Hope strangers pick them up and use them in completely unplanned ways.
3. Hope nobody gets hurt, nobody breaks or steals much.
4. Profit!
FWIW I think the implication that blacks will perceive the message differently than others is itself actually racist.
A black hole? No, a black whore. Quick, call the NAACP.
#DiversityConsciousness
Nice Underwear Gnome reference, Owen!
Racism!?!?
Wait until they find out that about Car-To-Go, or Reach, the socialized car companies. You need to apply to be a driver. They evaluate your driving record, and bad drivers are rejected.
Someone will find that some large percentage of the rejected applications are from blacks.
Why do they never complain about Calculus being racist??
EVERYTHING is RAAAAAACISM!!!!1111111!!!!!!
"For black people, that can really be experienced as a death threat," said [Oakland councilmember Rebecca] Kaplan
Here is the lefty logic:
* the police are an existential threat to black people because, per their logic, the police are shooting them for unexplained reasons
* therefore any black person who is told that the police may be called will assume that their life is at risk
Remember the church that decided to never call the police to protect people of color? Oakland. It is the same thought process. Should turn out well for all involved.
Lime and rest of the scooter co's in SF just realized that Uber and Lyft are applying for permits and are gonna eat their lunch. Thanks for the test market, guys!
Sam L. broke the code.
Why do they never complain about Calculus being racist??
Actually they have.
Hmmmm, time to Google "Making my truck bed a Faraday Cage".
What a stupid time to be alive.
My right of way as a pedestrian is obstructed by this pile of glorified litter but if I touch it the cops may bust my ass? Excuse me?
These things are pretty small, I wouldn't get all hot and bothered about "right of way" over them, just walk around them. Not everything should be about figuring out ways to sue people over minor inconveniences.
Although I do agree this companies business model seems downright hare brained and not very well thought out.
What can the scooter company do?
Based on what I see in DC, prepare for bankruptcy.
"Rebecca Kaplan"
Usually ex-slaves called themselves after famous people. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and of course, Gabe Kaplan.
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