Police Crack Down On Scooters As Councilwoman Barbara Bry Calls For Temporary Ban
Speaker 1: 00:00 The efforts to have greener transportation and safe streets and walkways are in conflict. As San Diego works to implement dock plus scooter regulations. Beliefs have been cracking down ticketing riders for violating ordinances as KPBS is Matt Hoffman reports the tickets aren't cheap and come as a surprise to those who had no idea they were violating any laws when writing a scooter. Matt, thanks for joining us. So first a, what are the problems some have with Speaker 2: 00:27 scooters? Right? So there's a lot of anecdotal things we hear, I mean accidents, people drop them all over the sidewalks, they're blocking access for people in wheelchairs. Um, they're speeding down the sidewalks, potentially running into people. Um, then, uh, near some of the beach areas. You hear a lot of stories about people who are intoxicated riding these scooters. Um, there have been some deaths on these scooters related to accidents. So those are just some of the problems with scooters. Speaker 1: 00:48 So then what exactly do the new scooter regulations say? Speaker 2: 00:52 Right? Yeah, they went into effect, uh, this month actually. And the new rules requires specific staging and parking areas. It also limits the speed in some areas like near the boardwalk and downtown to like eight miles an hour. Um, but like I said, that you can't park them in certain areas, like during comic con, you could not park them near the convention center. Um, it also requires a permitting process for secure. So you have to pay a fee every single time, uh, that they put a new scooter on the road. Um, they also have to have a, uh, pay a fee to permit just to have the scooters. And then there's also a fee if they get impounded two for the operator. Speaker 1: 01:22 All right. So that we're very clear. What's no longer allowed, for instance. Speaker 2: 01:26 That's right. So downtown, they have these new scooter corrals and they're working to put in another places. And basically if those corrals are there, you see, you're supposed to park them in those corrals. You're no longer allowed to park them on the sidewalks. You weren't supposed to park them on the sidewalks before, but, uh, there was selective enforcement on that. Um, also like we talked about near the beach areas, I used to be able to fly down a mission beach going, I think they go almost nearly 20 miles an hour. And now the companies are supposed to be putting in geo-fencing that limits that to eight miles an hour. So you're not allowed to just speed around in certain areas anymore. Speaker 1: 01:56 And how are writers supposed to find out what the new rules are? Speaker 2: 01:59 Right? So when you rent these scooters, they, they take you through a prompt where they tell you these other things. Uh, but also it's printed on the scooters. There's certain things that say, you know, no double writing. Um, don't write on the sidewalks. But I mean, we were just down there yesterday. We saw lots of double writers, um, and we saw lots of people writing on the sidewalks. And it seems that there's a lot of confusion, um, where there's people that just aren't reading it. Um, or there's people that come from out of town like, uh, other countries overseas. How do they understand this? And you talk to a tourist who told you he wishes there were clear rules? Yeah, we talked to a man named Anthony Design, um, who was about to rent a scooter in mission beach. Um, and he said, you know, that the rules are very unclear and that he wishes they were more clear. Yeah. How do you really enforce that or communicate over to somebody intelligently? You know, if it's just in some fine print, it's, I'm not going to read it. There's not a lot of information as to even tell me where I'm supposed to park it or even do with it. Speaker 1: 02:50 So that in mind then, you know, where can tourist or, or writers find clear, concise rules to this? Or if you talk to, like I Speaker 2: 02:59 talked to lime yesterday, they said it's all right there in the app, but people have to read it. So I mean, if you're just ignorant and you don't read it, um, then you could get a ticket. I mean, yesterday we were out there, uh, we saw a two gentlemen who are new to town and they, they said that, yeah, we, we, we didn't read the rules and they got, they got tagged for riding on the sidewalk, $150 ticket. They said, um, and the one kid said, you know, I don't really care. He said, I got, I guess I could've read the rules, but it was my ignorance that led me not to do it. There was another family right across the street who got a ticket because they had two kids who were under 16 riding the scooters. Uh, they did have helmets on though. Speaker 2: 03:31 Um, but they weren't allowed to ride them because they were so young. And the family says that they just, they did not know. I mean, on the scooters itself, most of them say you have to be 18 years or older to ride. That's a scooter requirement. Obviously the San Diego police have a 15 and a half or older requirement. You think they'll start posting signs. You know, I talked to council member Chris Kade about this yesterday and uh, you know, you can do all of the, uh, sign is that, that, that you want, he talked about, you know, maybe putting up some signs, but at the end of the day, if it's literally printed on the scooter, I mean it's right where they're at. Most of the screws, right where your foot goes on the scooter, it says id required, uh, 18 years or older, no double writing, no writing on sidewalks. Speaker 2: 04:09 Um, at the end of the day, if you just want to be an ignorant consumer, then you possibly can get a ticket. I mean, it's like when you go, and obviously they're not enforcing these all the times, like when you're speeding on the freeway, you might not get a ticket every single time, but when they're doing some enforcement of that area, you might get dinged and there are city rules about where scooters can be left, which often are not followed. Remind us what happened after comicon. Yeah. So during Comicon, uh, the city rounded up 2,500 scooters and bikes. Um, and like we mentioned earlier, part of that permitting process to scooter companies have to pay a $65 fine. Uh, many of those scooters were picked up. Um, and it costs an estimated over $160,000 for the city that the city says they're not making any money off that they say that that's just paying their costs to go pick up the scooters. Speaker 2: 04:50 But this was one of their big first enforcement actions. They say they usually pick up a couple of dozen a day, but during comicon they really laid the hammer down. And what's Barbara Bree proposing? And what is her rationale? Is it an outright ban or, right. So Barbara Bre, it's not an outright ban. It's a, well, it's an outright temporary ban, a moratorium that she wants to put on the scooters. She says the [inaudible], there's simply too many scooters on the streets. They're posing safety hazards and police have much better things to do than go out and try to get these people who are writing on the sidewalks and such. Um, she says like other cities, she would want to, um, have all the cities, uh, scooter contracts eliminated and open up a new RFP process, requests for proposals, and then only select a couple scooter companies, make the rules more clear and then bring them back. Speaker 2: 05:35 So she's not calling for an outright ban. She just wants a temporary ban until this can happen. But it's unclear if she has support from her colleague. Um, Scott Sherman said, hell no. That was the direct quote. Chris Kate said, absolutely not. Are they used for transportation to or from work for instance? Yeah, I mean if you talk, talk to a lot of people, they say they use them for that extra mile. I've even talked to some city staffers who say that they take them sometimes instead of city vehicles, if they're just going somewhere downtown. Um, and in terms of how many scooters are out there, uh, we talked to Lyman. They, they send us a statement that says with over 3 million trips taken by writers across San Diego, a moratorium only harm those who have come to rely on scooters every day. Got It. Read the fine print when you get ahold of the scooters, it sounds like. Exactly, exactly. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter, Matt Hoffman. Matt. Thank you. Thanks Jared. Speaker 3: 06:25 [inaudible].
