Forget cars — just scoot along now

This new category of on-demand transport is useful and fun, but only in the right cities

Until you actually ride a new electric scooter around a city, you can’t really appreciate how useful they are — or what the fuss around them is all about. Nor can you know how much fun it can be to zip around on them.

The electric scooter start-up segment is a high-growth one, and it is getting huge investment and media coverage. The proposition is simple: instead of using a ride-hailing service like Uber, you can turn to this new form of on-demand transport.

It’s ideal for short trips or for trips in places where traffic is congested. Or for those who, like me, want to do a little sightseeing.

I tried a variety of electric scooters during a recent trip to Washington and can confirm their usefulness and cool factor. I zipped down pavements (avoiding pedestrians is one of the hardest skills) and even took a ride up and down the famous mall that connects Capitol Hill to the Lincoln Monument. I stopped at the various Smithsonian museums, and at a food truck for lunch. There is a convenience factor that is unmistakable.

Once you’ve downloaded a scooter app, you scan a QR code on one of the bikes — they are parked on the street — to activate it. Speed is controlled by a twist of the right handlebar. When you finish your trip, you park the scooter and get your receipt.

I tried Uber’s Jump scooters as well as those from Lime and Bird.

In touristy areas there are plenty of scooters to pick up. You can see all

the nearby scooters and their charge level (a key item to check). Each device has the requisite colour branding, so they are generally easy to spot.

As Uber’s head of new mobility, Rachel Holt, tells the FM: “The more our technology can expand access to bikes and scooters, the greener and less congested cities will be.”

I was pleasantly surprised at how much tech and thought have gone into the scooter business, not least into the way of charging the batteries that power them. Uber rolled out (pun intended) its new Jump models at the Elevate conference I attended in June.

But scooters are not without controversy and they are clearly not loved by everyone. Claims by Lime and Bird that their scooters are environmentally friendly and “carbon free” have recently been debunked by researchers from North Carolina State University. The scooters are also receiving disdain and criticism in some cities (most notably San Francisco) for being urban playthings of the despised “tech brus”, which refers to the odious patriarchal culture of male-led start-ups. The venom directed against scooters seems disproportionate, but it’s one of the only ways ordinary folk can express their anger at how tech start-ups have changed the culture and cost of some cities where property prices have soared.

The scooters are unlikely to be launched in crime-ravaged SA. But in the hubs of Sandton, Rosebank and Braamfontein they could be handy.

Just saying.

I tried a variety of electric scooters [in] Washington and can confirm their usefulness and cool factor