Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Bird Launches In London

Santa Monica-based on-demand scooter rental service Bird has launched its service--in a limited way--in London, with a limited pilot that makes the company's scooters available in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The new service skirts a strict U.K. law which makes operating electronic scooters illegal to operate on streets, by solely operating on private property. The limited route apparently services a commute route between Here East, a co-working site that houses Bird's London office, and the London Aquatics Center. It's unclear why laws in the UK are more effective at keeping scooter services like Bird off the streets; in the US, most of the electronic scooter services have been using a "launch first, ask permission later" approach to deploying in cities, ignoring local laws and cities and deploying their scooters anyway before hashing out rules once they've already sprinkled the sidewalks with their vehicles.