APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) – A pilot program for Bird electric scooters has been running in Appleton since late April.
There have been some complaints, as expected.
“A lot of the Bird scooters are put there for rental, but they’re not supposed to be ridden up and down those sidewalks. So that’s where we see a lot of the issues come into play,” said Appleton Police Lieutenant William Krieg. “One is the speed, because it can go fairly fast. And two, there’s an ordinance in Appleton that does not allow for scooters, bicycles, skateboards – most of those wheel-type vehicles through that corridor…With COVID, there’s a lot more outdoor dining, more people walking in our downtown, so the speed and relative narrowness of our sidewalks becomes an issue at times.”
Krieg reminds people who might be riding the scooters to just slow down, especially around pedestrians and other people.
The reported number of crashes involving inexperienced riders, however, is fairly low.
“There may be one? While I’ve been working, I have not seen any reports of crashes that I’m aware of. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t a few throughout various other shifts,” Krieg said.
The scooters can hit upwards of 15mph in some situations. For some people, balancing at that speed could be difficult to handle, particularly if the scooter has unknown issues like loose handlebars or a sticky brake.
“There’s always concern for injury. We haven’t had too many reports come in to that effect as of yet, but it’s still a relatively new program,” Krieg said.
But another reason those reported numbers might be fairly low is that police aren’t hearing about crashes or other incidents involving the scooters. If a rider crashes, they can simply leave it in their review on the Bird app at the end of the ride and the company will contact them directly about the incident.
“When they have damaged scooters, they won’t call us. They’ll just deal with it. So if anybody is vandalizing a scooter, chucks one over a bridge, eats it [crashes], and there’s damage to it – a lot of that stuff we’re not going to be aware of because Bird is just going to handle it internally,” Krieg told WTAQ News. “That’s going to kind of skew some of the numbers, because we’re getting a lot less reports either directly from [Bird] or just from individuals who wiped out. So for it to rise to the level of reaching us at the department, I think it would have to be pretty substantial.”
The pilot program in Appleton is set to run through the end of the year.
Green Bay also added a Bird pilot program in July.
Green Bay Police say over the course of the past three weeks, only two injuries were reported along with just one complaint. That complaint involved a group of riders going the wrong way down Main Street, and some were handed citations for ‘E-Scooter Improper Riding on Roadway.’
“Unless you’ve committed a traffic violation like failing to yield right-of-way or something like that, it’s probably not going to get reported as much,” said Green Bay Police Captain John Balza.
Other issues seen include people riding in areas where they shouldn’t be, people drawing on sidewalks while doing burnouts on the scooters, and scooters being left in random places and peoples’ lawns.
Bird did not respond to a request for comment from WTAQ on Monday.
You can learn more about the company and their programs here.
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