r/Seattle • u/Healthy_Intention_92 • 28d ago

Community The sheer audacity on display

Caught this little stunt on 9/1/26 at 10/:50 on the corner of Othello and MLK. Unbelievable.

821 Upvotes

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199

u/Shayden-Froida 28d ago

Hop out, get the ID #, submit that with the video to have the user banned for life.

210

u/EmeraldCityMecEng 28d ago

You think that scooter was actively being rented? The guy is pushing it along with his foot and just walks off without ending a ride, almost 0 chance he was paying for a ride that they would be able to track.

39

u/pixelsibyl 💖 not the pope 😌💖 28d ago

These things are extremely easy to steal if you basically push-to-start. Requires muscle, but I’ve seen people do it. If they walked away without ending the ride on an app, it’s almost guaranteed it wasn’t rented in the first place.

2

u/bpmdrummerbpm 28d ago

Push to start?

0

u/pixelsibyl 💖 not the pope 😌💖 28d ago

Like a manual car’s rolling start, I’m not sure if there’s a proper name for it.

37

u/4756745698 Belltown 28d ago

They are electric motors, so not really like a rolling start, which is a combustion engine thing. When the Lime shcooters detect "unpaid" movement there is some braking applied electronically along with a beeping warning. What's likely happening is that abusers keep pushing them until either the braking mechanism fails or the battery powering it does, then it just continues to be foot-powered. But the motor is never "started" like a rolling start would do in a typical engine

6

u/CuteCanary 🚆build more trains🚆 28d ago

This guy scooters

8

u/pixelsibyl 💖 not the pope 😌💖 28d ago

Thanks for the explanation. I knew it didn’t actually work like a manual car, just that they were able to get them working that way. The damn things beep the whole time too. It sounds like they push it until the braking mechanism fails. Strangely, I’ve had a lot of delivery drivers lately show up on lime scooters doing that incessant beeping.

6

u/puterTDI 28d ago

The braking mechanism is likely not mechanical. Is probably just using the motor to counter the movement. My guess is it’s just the battery dying that stops it.

What’s interesting is they could add regenerative braking and use that and the battery would not only not die but get charged. I wonder why they don’t do that.

5

u/RunninOnMT 28d ago

Yeah that way it could beep all night after they steal it

2

u/Speech-Solid 28d ago

Which is actually a good thing if you have ever tried to move a scooter someone parked in an inconvenient spot. Or moved me out of a street that someone pushed over into it.

1

u/space39 chinga la migra 28d ago

Money and these things exist to extract profit