You may have seen that there will be a referendum in Paris later this year on whether to continue with hire e-scooters or end them.
From France24:
The issue is "extremely divisive", mayor Anne Hidalgo told the weekend edition of Le Parisien newspaper, with critics saying riders show only cursory respect for the rules of the road.
They often defy bans on riding on pavements, or park without consideration, while some abandon the scooters in parks or even toss them into the Seine river.
Fans meanwhile praise the zippy fleets -- totalling 15,000 scooters operated by companies Lime, Dott and Tier -- as a fast, non-polluting alternative to cars or crowded public transport.
Hidalgo said Paris residents would be asked "a very simple question" in the referendum planned for April 2: "Do we or don't we continue with free-floating rental scooters?"
The mayor said she herself was leaning towards a ban but would "respect Parisians' vote".
A ban would make Paris an exception among major cities...
That may not be a such a surprise, given the problems and complaints they give rise to. But this?:
Hidalgo told Le Parisien meanwhile that privately owned scooters, also hugely popular in the capital, were not targeted in the referendum. They are "not a problem", she said.
Of course here those private scooters you come across are being ridden illegally, so you can hardly expect them to be responsible users. Will that biassed impression dictate what happens here?
When I was last in Paris (2019), I did find some very crowded bits of pedestrian space (mostly corners of squares) where cyclists already made things scary by coming at you from unexpected directions. Scooters did make that worse, just by being slightly different in size, shape, speed etc. But that's Paris - the environment isn't the same in Bristol (or Wokingham!) so the the issues won't be quite the same either.
