Micromobility (bikeshare, scootershare)

[danbrotherston]

I've had an e-scooter for over a year, and didn't even consider that it wouldn't be allowed until coming across the WR Engage survey. I ride respectfully on shared trails, just as I would do with a bike. I don't really see any meaningful safety distinction between an e-scooter and a bike, or understand why the rules would be different.

I rarely use mine to be honest, but I've come across many dozens on the IHT as a pedestrian, and never had safety issues or concerning behaviour. The few (electric) mopeds that go through are much more concerning to me.

The Ministry of Transportation doesn't require people over the age of 18 to wear helmets on e-scooters, however the Region of Waterloo has made it mandatory for all riders to wear a helmet, regardless of age.

This is out of touch, making up rules without any real world consideration. However, is this something the Region can do? Could they, for example, mandate that all car drivers have to wear a helmet within the Region even if the MoT doesn't?

A rider is not allowed to carry any other passengers on board or carry cargo.

What exactly is meant by cargo here? Mine has a small hook that could maybe carry a single grocery bag. Is that breaking the rules? Absurd if so.

I would put the chances of helmet wearing and adhering to the no sidewalks rule as squarely zero but I suppose better than an outright ban for starters. As usual, does more to illuminate our poor non-vehicular infrastructure as much or more than it says anything about safe operation of a scooter.

Completely agree with that conclusion. I wouldn't count on too many scooters on the sidewalks though; it's almost unbearably unpleasant going over each and every crack with the tiny scooter wheels and 0 suspension.

Yeah...these kind of a nonsense rules (no-cargo is stupid. Bikes have "only as many people as the bike is built for, in theory child seats are illegal maybe?) are the kind of things which make me really lose faith in our government.

Rules which don't make sense and aren't enforced are bad, because they can be used for police abuses, but also just because they lead people to ignore the law.

Escooters here are also illegal AFAIK (it's murky I think) but throttled vehicles which do 45km/h (most of which are stinky noisy two stroke gas scooters and are often illegally unlimited and go 70km/h+) are permitted on bike trails if licensed and insured. This should be a very VERY easy decision to fix. But they don't...because plain ebikes (not the 45km/h scooters--some of which are bicycles) are not permitted to have throttles and e-scooters thus do not qualify under the same law as e-bikes (they can in fact, in theory be licensed under the 45km/h scooter category, but the manufacturer would have to do that I think).

But it's just insane, a very benign vehicle I see all the time is illegal and scooters which are disruptive if not dangerous in some circumstances are largely legal.

And this is in a country with largely sensible laws around these things---or...maybe I shouldn't say that I don't actually know if the laws really are sensible. The engineering is at least.

FWIW...I'm kind of interested in an electric escooter (not moped) kind of vehicle (they call them "step" here, which really makes the nomenclature less difficult), but as an immigrant, I'm less inclined to knowingly break the rules, even though by all accounts, it seems to be an accepted practice.