2 Big Benefits of Using Electric Scooters in Urban Areas

It’s been a year, if not more, since you’ve been Downtown. You head into the city center for a friendly gathering, and you see a sight you have never seen before…there are people on scooters rolling along the sidewalks – in mass. You have never seen so many scooters in one place. You have never seen adults on scooters before. And there are so many abandoned scooters parked along the sidewalks, seemingly at random. It leaves you wondering: where did all of those scooters came from?

Overnight, these scooters appeared in major metropolitan areas, and their numbers have been growing for the past few years. They are there to help with the transportation problems these cities have. Too often, cities around the world are congested. So many people living in such a compacted area, along with thousands of visitors to these cities on a daily basis, is bound to create traffic problems. That is where these scooters come in.

These rideshare scooters operate similar to services like Uber and Lyft in that you pay for their use to get you to your destination. Once there, you simply leave it outside for someone else to use (hence the appearance of being abandoned). They are activated through a smartphone app which you enter your credit card into to pay for the use of the scooter. These services cost on average $2. The money saved from using less gas will cover the trips you make on a scooter. If you live in a city and want to own an electric scooter to get around, a small personal loan can help you afford one you would not have to share with others.

Alleviates Congestion on the Roads

Four or five companies have put these scooters out in various countries, most heavily in the United States. Currently, the UK has not accepted these because of vehicle laws classifying electric scooters as a motor vehicle, as well as sidewalk laws forbidding their use on sidewalks. Lawmakers in the UK obviously do not see the benefits of them.

By allowing electric scooters in British cities, the number of cars on the roads will shrink. Pedestrians will rely on them to get to work, to the shop, to the park, or whatever their destination might be. And they will get there faster because they are not trapped in gridlock during their commutes. Fewer cars on the roads means drivers will get where they’re going just a little bit quicker as well.

Reduce the Use of Fossil Fuels

Fewer cars on the roads also means less pollution, leading to cleaner air. China is a country struggling with air quality issues in many cities. It is such an old country that hundreds of millions of people are crammed into a single city, and the exhaust from so many cars on the roads builds up in these areas. It is so bad that residents of these cities often have to wear masks to filter out the smog. Electric rideshare scooters are becoming extremely popular in China, and this is part of the reason.

If even a couple of million people in one of these Chinese cities begins using a scooter to travel within the city, not only would it reduce the amount of vehicle emissions released into the atmosphere, but it would also cut back on the amount of fossil fuels used to power those vehicles. Being electric powered, they do not rely on oil, nor fuels in the form of gasoline/petrol. They also require very little power to charge, meaning the increase in electricity is not significant. This is good if the area is powered by coal; the emissions from the generation of the additional power will be minimal.