Pedestrians, rejoice: Technology that can keep electric scooters off city sidewalks has arrived.
Bird, one of the city’s shared scooter vendors, will unveil its new “smart sidewalk protection” pilot program on Monday.
Riders traveling on a sidewalk will now receive both an audible alert as well as a mobile notification, and the vehicle will be brought safely and smoothly to a stop by removing throttle.
The technology, which only works on the Bird 3 model scooter, hinges on a new positioning system with centimeter-level accuracy, along with more precise geofencing maps.
oh great…now they won’t be able to mow down pedestrians who are walking on the sidewalk…they’ll only be able to mow people down when they are crossing the street! (see April 4 story) Geesh!!
btw, i’m curious…what charges is the guy who mowed down Debbie Meister facing?
Does this mean we can at least get separated bike lanes on Santa Monica Blvd then? Those striped lanes seem dangerous.
Can we do the same thing with bicycles?
They shouldn’t be allowed period.
This really is great news! I had given up and couldn’t believe everyone couldn’t see how dangerous these things are on sidewalks.
How are these still a “thing”???? No way they make any money.
Wait until they are self-driving so the passenger can snooze along the way.
Anything other than the Bird 3 model should be banned from the City.
THIS!!!
This debate has gone back-and-forth for years. And I keep saying the same thing. If law enforcement would do their job, this would be less of a problem. Meanwhile, I believe the scooters are here to stay. The city already lifted the ban. I don’t think they’re going to revisit this issue anytime soon.
I commend Bird for developing this, and I’m not surprised that they did. They were waiting for the technology to catch up with their ideas. This is immensely complicated, to get this level of accuracy.