Originally Posted by
tandempower
But there are people trying to choose alternatives to driving and there are various external sources obstructing them. You can just pretend like it's simple honest supply and demand and competition without anti-competitive market manipulation, but that is willful denial of efforts to stifle alternative transportation.
It's tripping your competition and then saying, 'oh, poor kid, better watch where you're going," as if you weren't the one who tripped him.
There has been no evidence that anyone in this forum has been denied the right to try alternative forms of transportation. The best that can be said is that a large part of society is not interested in helping non conformists be non conformist. But almost all of society is willing to let them be non conformist if they wish to do so. No one is told they cannot ride a bike, walk or take a bus anywhere they want. Except were it might be dangerous like freeways. All the other forms of transportation are available. So no one is restricting scooters or bikes or walking. That is not to say there should be no regulations as to what people have to put up with so that bikes and scooters can have free range of our public walkways and roads.
There is still no connection to GM and the back lash that cities are having with Escooters and Ebikes dropped at random anywhere on a city street or sidewalk. And because the problem is just as bad in China as in the US it cannot be blamed on GM or the automotive industry. And besides if I and 9 out of 10 households in the US can buy our own vehicle to drive on highways how hard can it be for the 1 to 5 percent to buy their own scooter or Ebike? It sounds like the bigger complaint is that not everything is free to use. I suspect if cars we free to just step into and go where people wanted there would be no mass transit or scooters and maybe Ebikes. I will say it again, people don't want to do things the hard way except maybe for entertainment.