The War on Bird Scooters 

guys WATCH the video before you give your take on it. the amount of comments i see that are uninformed on info/opinions that are stated in the video are way too high

How am i supposed to enjoy a scoot with the boys and feel the wind in my hair if I'm wearing a helmet though?

Regulators are scrambling to deal with The Boys.

I can't believe they put copyright on the sound of a leafblower. smh

"Whats more important, your safety or my fun?" Oh Eddie, if only you could've seen how much this question would piss you off just 1 year later.

Walks into bank “I love innovating with the law” Pulls out gun

dont care what anyone says catch me flexing on the local preteen hooligans with my eco-friendly bitchmobile

They seem convenient and eco-friendly but also kind of littering. Leaving them in the middle of the street could be really bad for the blind or wheelchair users.

5:23 lol "innovating on the regulatory side" I'm glad the journalist called him out on that immediately

> wants to stay anonymous > camera proceeds to show very identifiable leg tattoos LOL

My favorite thing is finding bird scooters abandoned in woodsy areas like a cryptid

this is such an issue currently in italy for blind people especially, because they’re designed in such a way that their walking sticks can’t sense them. blind people trip over them constantly on the sidewalk, because people just dump them after reaching their destination. it’s terrible.

if anyone asks me why there's a gap in my resume from when i was in jail, definitely going to say i was innovating on the legislative side

A homeless man in my neighborhood in DTLA rigged a bird to push his shopping cart. It's so beautiful.

I had never heard of these before so when I saw the notification I just thought you really hated birds riding scooters

The fact that that guy went "excuse me, excuse me" because he expecred the pedestrians to get out of his way... What a psycho

I go to OSU, and a big issue with them here is people getting on them when they’re drunk. Also, with people leaving them in the middle of the sidewalk they become hazardous to people who have a disability.

The scooters just amplify the problems that Cyclists have been dealing with for years. Sidewalks are off limits, but the roadways are usually not safe either.

It pisses me off that so many people don’t realize that a red light/stop sign applies to the bike lane as well. I’ve seen so many douchey cyclists run red lights, some nearly causing accidents

"why these scooters can be very bad" well first of all it's a scooter with your credit card information

when I was in Marseilles my friend and I rode Lime scooters and locals resorted to cutting brake lines on some scooters and I didnt realize this on my first ride so I wiped out going 30mph on a hill with no guard rails to a 40' drop to the ocean. even with a helmet I would've died pretty horribly but got away with a ruined pair of jeans.

I’m one of those “boys” hehe 😜

The only bird I like is a Well Dressed one

My city up in Canada has some positive things to say about Lime scooters. They have talked a lot about "the last kilometer problem". This is a major reason why people do not use public transit; it just leaves people too far from their work (or wherever they need to go). A cheap ride on a scooter could make it a lot easier to be environmentally friendly by using public transit.

4:33 The awkward crossing of the dudes arms like he doesn’t know what to do with them is... well awkward. He tries to look professional and cool but just falls flat.

*Creator of Bird Graveyard wants to remain anonymous by hiding his face* *Creator of Bird Graveyard also shows his unique, easily identifiable tattoos on television* Honestly didn't expect anything, but I'm still disappointed by his stupidity

"He wants to remain anonymous, so we focused the camera on his distinctive leg tattoo."

I like to think back to a year ago when this was all we had to worry about

You can't say "it's a company's property" when they deliberately abandoned it on public property.

1:12 yeah cant have UMG copyright claiming the leafblower sound (they would do it)

Eddy “With the Boys” Burback

Interesting you didn't mention the being dumped element much esp as one of the early video clips showed it. If these bikes were put in organised legit places and not just dumped everywhere they would be much more accepted. Nice to see these are things that happen wherever in the world you are

Me just vibing in my suburban Southern town: “huh, cool”

You know ethics are out the window when someone named “Turd Guy” is the hero in the situation

As a wheelchair user these are a nightmare because people leave them in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing us to either go into the street to go around, ask a passerby to move it, or simply turn around (we have places to be too!)

Me: yeah one time I got hit by a bird and it broke my neck My friend: what type of bird was that Me: a metal one

One guy wanted to buy a scooter I rented and I had to spend 20 minutes explaining to him what bird was

Great video Edward

This isn’t the Birdemic I was expecting

When I went to Denmark I rode Lime scooters all the time. Sometimes I found some scooters that had the QR code covered with spray paint so that you couldn't use them.

I know I’m late but living in a college town, I see people drunk driving on these scooters all the time. It’s so incredibly dangerous for anyone who’s around them around

Can we. Please can we have more bike lanes. Just in general.

As someone in a country that doesn't have this service, I find the idea of heaps of people zooming around the city on scooters really fkn funny

what was that one guy that hit the girl (when it was a red light for him) thinking he was gonna do when he was about to drive into traffic?? there were like three cars turning at the point where if he hadn’t looked back to see if she was ok, he would’ve crashed... people are idiots.

I watched this video forever ago when it first came out and was very anti-scooter myself with all the safety troubles, but recently I got the chance to ride one myself with my friends in San Antonio and wow do I understand the desire to scoot with the boys, it was a blast. As long as you’re safe, I think it’s all good.

You can't outlaw people being dumb, but you can ticket people using them incorrectly. bicycle riders break all these same laws.

Important note: The brakes on the scooters are very weak, compared to bicycles (rim or discs). So it's incredibly difficult to stop and slow down.

4:03 I love how the range for the go bike is "until you drop"

Meanwhile, there a 20+ gas-guzzling pickup trucks rounding these things up a night to charge them. The "environmentally friendly" argument is bust when you actually take all factors into consideration. The best thing to do would be to purchase your own scooter of higher quality, and store/charge it in your own house.

I don't think anyone loves anything as much as Ed loves his boys

The CEO of Bird doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

my city got lime scooters last year but were removed a few months later because people kept throwing them off of buildings and into the canal

I was in SF when these were rolled out and it was handled terribly. I live next to Dolores park which is a hotspot for young hipsters getting high and goofing around and these things were all over. Every morning I would see the vans plop a bunch of them on every corner and throughout the day they would get scattered all over the sidewalks completely blocking the relatively wide sidewalks. With the rent-a-bikes at least they were contained into their ports but the model of scattering them all over the sidewalks and blocking traffic is just horrible.

An even bigger problem that gets forgotten is how they affected accessibility. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times the curb cuts so I can get on the sidewalk with my wheelchair is commonly completely blocked by tons of scooters park there. They also make it really hard to use the sidewalk when I’m in a wheelchair and there’s all these people just zooming around. A lot of people aren’t considerate of this fact

Wow, I was really ill-informed on the logistics of scooters in urban areas. This was genuinely informative and not something I would expected to ever have knowledge of. Thanks.

Okay I know this video is 2 years old, but we started getting these in the UK last year and I think they've actually learned from these issues lmao. It's still a government piloted scheme here with companies like Beryl, and they're super restricted!! All the scooters in my city are limited to 10mph in the centre of the city and by the beachside they're able to go to 15mph by gps, people also get fined pretty regularly for not wearing helmets or doubling up on scooters 😂

"What's more important, Safety or Fun?" Damn this video really is from 2019

when people throw bird scooters off buildings, they're making birds fly

I usually hate that shirt on people but it looks mighty fine on Eddy.

My city has been trying to go off this idea of bus stops being too far for many people to walk (especially in our harsh Canadian winters) with pretty good ideas. They have bike lockers, literal metal boxes, alongside simple bike stands to lock them up so you can bike a shorter distance and then catch the bus. Likewise, they've made a lot of bus routes shorter so that, even if you have to make more transfers, it makes public transit faster, more reliable, and generally more accessible. With smaller routes within neighborhood bringing people to the bigger routes is similar to the way you could scooter to a bus stop and catch it the rest of the way. That being said, I live downtown and haven't been able to see how helpful this is.

where i live, a few years ago, a company backed by a famous basketball player (lebron james maybe? i’m not sure) dropped off a bunch of electric scooters around the city. the city tracked down all the scooters and impounded them, but the company decided it wasn’t worth paying to get the scooters back, so they sat in an impound lot until a DIFFERENT company made a deal with the city to legally run a scooter rental here using those scooters

"I have only two options if I don't have a car, use a car or use a car" Eddie have you never heard of bicycles

It’s fun to watch full-grown adults pushover scooters like their a kid thinking they’re picking a fight with a biker gang

Facebook: We've been innovating on regulations before it was cool.

In SLC Utah where I live, these scooters are actually really useful. The sidewalks in SLC are never super crowded, so the scooters pretty much have free reign, but that’s probably just SLC.

The roads in the US are just really outdated when it comes to... everything really, but honestly especially when it comes to alternative transportation. There's nowhere reasonable for scooters to go. I don't even feel safe riding a bike on the street because of how psycho drivers are, much less a scooter. It's a vicious combo of bad drivers and structure problems.

They were just released in my city like a few weeks ago, I’m in Canada- what the hell is gonna happen to them when it snows in a month?

bro i know a person whos dog was hit by one of these, broke on of its legs. these scooters definitely need regulation

“he wants to stay anonymous” *shows his tattoos*

These scooters literally showed up just a couple of weeks a go here in Oslo too ! When Uber came to Norway, taxi-services without permits was already illegal, so Uber kinda existed but was illegal for a while. And police really slammed down on it too. Which was hilarious cause it meant that if you were taking an uber to a nightclub or something, you had to pretend to be sweet friends with the uber driver so if police saw you they'd think you knew each other from before. Also it meant that when you were to get out of the car you had to get out and away as fast as possible in case there was a patroling policecar nearby, and the drivers just sped off as fast as they could. I mean, it was kinda funny for us who just wanted to get to the club for cheap, but it was also really shitty for the drivers who got busted. And even if you werent busted, you had to work with the constant fright that you might, so probably for the better that Uber decided to shut down services in Norway... Wonder whats gonna happen if we ban the scooters, like you'll be riding down the street then have to throw the scooter in a bush if you see police. Pretend that it wasnt you...

If the scooters dont go faster than the average cyclist I dont see why people couldnt just follow the bike rules. In the Netherlands it would work really well because we have enough bike lanes

12:26 I have a vivid image of a mother yeeting her baby into the sky to try and knock down a seagull

I actually really like these. I went to a smaller college in a pretty small town and it was so fun to go ride around all the time. Not even to get from one place to another. Just fun to go ride around when there was nothing else to do at midnight. It sucks people have to act like idiots with them and break them, trash stuff, and leave them in bad spots.

One very important aspect of this thing is how it changes the cityscape for the extreme worse for people who for example are blind or use wheelchairs. These scooters are parked everywhere, like in the middle of a sidewalk, and that could just as well be a concrete wall for someone who can't see what's in the way or isn't physically able to move the scooter out of their path/get around it. Also, the lifespan of a scooter really is quite low (not counting all the people burning them) so potentially, it's not very environmental friendly. (mashable.com/article/escooter-lifespan-shared-new-models/?europe=true)

'This company is breaking the law so I'm also gonna break the law' Take that, company!

I live in a city right near SF, for a long time we had a LOT of lime bikes and scooters around, even the city hall was flooded with them. I didn’t even realize, but right when 2019 started, they vanished. So yeah we definitely hated Bird and Lime. The last Bird scooter I saw was a year ago and it wasn’t even a complete scooter, just the handle bars.

the city that has dealt with this best in my experience is Sevilla, Spain. They have zones where the scooters have a cap on the top speed at 17 km/h roughly and designated parking zones if you try to park it somewhere else it won’t let you and will keep charging you.

As someone who is on a college campus with these scooters I feel the same way. Pro- on weekends less drunk drivers, cause people just bird around Con- People get hit by these things daily because they are used going at top speeds between classes when the sidewalks are super congested. It’s a mixed bag.

These scooters (not the exact brand but similar) popped up in bristol in the UK recently, and idk if u HAVE to but most people ride them in the bicycle lane rather than on the pavement or in the road. That way they dont crash into pedestrians or get in the way of cars I think its a better system

"If you don't like birds, don't use your baby to knock them down." Amazing out of context sentence.

“what’s better: peoples safety or my fun? i don’t know! let’s dive deeper” the best

“We will follow any regulations set by the city” that’s basically saying “because we legally have to”

The Region of Waterloo in Canada started using them last summer. It was a government led initiative and there were some hiccups but def a great service. Great first and last mile alternative for multimodal trips.

I'm definitely in the F-Bird camp. One thing that annoys me that wasn't talked about in this video is how these Birds end up just dumped wherever on the sidewalks like garbage when people are done riding.

Babies are the first line of defense against Bird scooters

What happened to good ol razor scooters. I can’t even smash my ankles and shins with bird scooters 😭😭😭

Great video as always, but I feel a big item missed was how, if we had better bike infrastructure, these would be less of an issue. But because roads are almost completely built for cars, it pits scooters, pedestrians, and other alternative modes of transportation to fight against each other for the scraps, which is sad.

I live in Melbourne. Australia and a few years ago when we got Lime bikes they all ended up in the Yarra River, by the train line or in trees. It was hectic.

There is nothing I love more... Than scootin' around with my boys. Across the city. Just me on a scoot, a boy right here, a boy right here, maybe a boy in the back, just my boys. Ridin' around. -Eddy "With the boys" Burback, 2019 Literally the best quote

"Uh your honor, I was just innovating on the regulatory side of consent law."

Remember when we used to care about this kind of stuff? Easier times

The first time I encountered these types of scooters was a couple years ago in Paris. I instantly hated them. People riding through crowded pedestrian areas making everyone else move out of their way or get hit. It was almost always tourists. Then they're just laying in the middle of sidewalks and stuff when people aren't using them. Constantly in the way. Then like a year ago, apparently Little Rock now has them. Literally got run into by some 20 year olds joy riding on the sidewalks downtown. The e-bike shares that operate like these scooters... they are a far, far better public transit option.

i work in an ER and i see SO many patients come in with these injuries. and a 9 year old who stole his parent's credit card to use one.

It’s absurd like just imagine if people reacted to people biking the same way they reacted to these scooters. Bird (and others) should rent out its scooters the same way divvy rents out its bikes. They have certain stations to drop and pick up the bikes

i've seen a couple of these around where i live (a kinda small city in WYOMING) and i've been considering using them since i don't have a car, but the fear that i Might cause a collision has stopped me from trying them out. like if i Ran into a whole person with a SCOOTER there would be no other choice after that but to end it all

with the massive homeless catastrope in San Fran, some scooters rolling around are the absolute least of their problems. I was just there for work a couple months ago, and I was scared to leave my hotel. the sidewalks are literally covered in tents, garbage, feces and people openly shooting heroin, even in the shopping district. I can't believe scooter companies are even willing to leave their products in San Fran with the insane shoplifting. a woman walking out of the hotel near me on my second day there had her bag snatched while I was getting into an Uber. no one even reacted other than me. they're so used to it. it was so terrible compared to the last time I was there several years ago. I can't believe how bad it's gotten. it's a literal crisis.

Also for people in wheelchairs it is an even bigger problem that they are blocking sidewalks because they can’t just move around them all the time.

I think they should store the scooters in a location with a lock you have to pay to unlock instead of just finding them on the street. If the scooter isn't returned to one of these locations the person should have to pay a fine or something to deter people from burning them, In Manchester they used to have these bikes you could hire for the day but they were banned due to people mistreating them, It'd be a shame if the same thing happened to these because it encourages more people to use eco-friendly ways of travelling.

8:37 I dont think any girl would check out a guy on a bird scooter

The first place I encountered these was in Washington DC in/near the national mall. It was actually a really good application. There was plenty of space, not in the way of pedestrians, the traffic flow already worked well with the scooters. And, there weren't too too many. I think there could be a good integration/application, but it needs to be regulated and limited, smart application.