text: The situation has become dangerous and unacceptable. San Francisco City Attorney’s Office 
   
   It was fun while it lasted. 
   
   The wheels came off San Francisco’s short-distance transportation experiment on Monday, when City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent a cease and desist letter to three companies that had flooded the city’s streets with electric scooter rentals. 
   
   The scooters, which were popular in spite of some maintenance issues, represent a wave of venture capital money pouring into short-distance transportation tools. One of the companies, Bird, has become a familiar presence on the streets and sidewalks near its headquarters in Santa Monica, California. It’s of a piece with the dockless and electric bicycle boom, epitomized by Uber’s high-value acquisition of e-bike start-up Jump last week. 
   
   But nowhere have scooters blanketed a city quite like San Francisco. Among the city’s complaints: The scooter companies have violated state law (yes, apparently California has a state statute governing electric scooters) by allowing riders to scoot on sidewalks, without helmets, and with two people to a scooter. Helmet laws in particular tend to be the kiss of death for shared mobility programs, sending potential users back into taxi cabs. 
   
   Below are the photos the City Attorney released to bolster the case for a crackdown, noting, “We cannot overstate the public safety hazard that operating motorized scooters pose on City sidewalks.” 
   
   “We cannot overstate the public safety hazard that operating motorized scooters pose on City sidewalks,” the City Attorney writes. San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. 
   
   Scooters left on Market Street. San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. 
   
   Scooters outside the De Young Museum San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. 
   
   An older man dodges a scooter downtown. San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. 
   
   Supervisor Aaron Peskin—himself no stranger to overstatement (he once compared housing construction in San Francisco to the destruction of Bến Tre)—is working on a municipal law to regulate scooter usage. At least two San Franciscans, including Peskin, claim to have broken their toes tripping over scooters. 
   
   However, as many San Franciscans have pointed out, the presence of scooters is in many ways less of a nuisance—and objectively, less of a danger—than the city’s private automobiles. Joe Rivano Barros made the point in a series of tweets over the weekend: 
   
   San Franciscans may find the scooters a nuisance, but it’s mostly that they are an unfamiliar one, and for some residents, a reminder that the city is changing. 
   
   Update, 5:50 p.m. After this article was published, a spokesperson for the City Attorney responded to a question: How many documented injuries or accidents had occurred involving electric scooters? Here is the response: ||||| Jack Handlery logs into an app to use a motorized scooter in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. San Francisco is ordering three companies that rent out motorized scooters to stop operating until... (Associated Press) 
   
   Jack Handlery logs into an app to use a motorized scooter in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. San Francisco is ordering three companies that rent out motorized scooters to stop operating until they can ensure riders are following state law and the dockless devices are not a hazard to the public.... (Associated Press) 
   
   SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco is ordering three companies that began renting motorized foot-pedal scooters in the city last month to stop operating until they can ensure riders are obeying state laws and that the devices are not a hazard to the public. 
   
   City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in letters to LimeBike, Bird and Spin that the city has received numerous complaints of riders whizzing by on sidewalks, not wearing helmets and parking the devices on sidewalks, obstructing the right of way. 
   
   Despite previous warnings, the scooter companies are "creating a public nuisance on the city's streets and sidewalks and endangering public health and safety," he wrote. 
   
   Hundreds of the scooters began appearing around the tech-friendly city in March, and were quickly picked up by riders. They have become an annoyance for many because they do not require docking stations and can be set down anywhere when a ride is over. 
   
   California law requires riders of motorized scooters to wear a helmet, not carry passengers and not operate on sidewalks. The rules appear in videos riders must watch and sign off on when they download the cellphone app that unlocks the scooters. 
   
   Herrera provided the companies with photographs showing scooters lying in the middle of sidewalks and people riding without helmets. They have until April 30 to address complaints, he said. 
   
   Jack Handley, who works at his family-run hotel, said he pays about $2 to use a scooter for about five minutes, which he said he rides on the street. 
   
   "I can grab one and zoom on over to where I need to go and then zoom right back," Handley said after dropping off a LimeBike outside a FedEx office in downtown San Francisco. 
   
   He said he would stop using them if he is required to get a permit or wear a helmet. 
   
   "I'm not going to carry a helmet with me," he said. "I would rather walk than go through that headache." 
   
   The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved legislation requiring the scooter companies have transit agency permits to operate and to allow public workers to remove scooters without permits from streets or sidewalks. 
   
   The ordinance requires companies to educate users about how to safely ride and store the devices and establishes fines starting at $125 per scooter. 
   
   "Sidewalks are for pedestrians and strollers and disabled individuals and wheelchairs," said the law's author, Supervisor Aaron Peskin. 
   
   "We're not trying to ban them," he said. "But we want to make sure that they're operating in a way that is helpful to the transportation problems of San Francisco." 
   
   David Estrada, chief legal officer for Santa Monica, California-based Bird Rides Inc., said the company wants to work with city officials to solve traffic problems in San Francisco. 
   
   "They request we do some education for riders and request we implement some technology to address some of the issues, we have all of that in the works," Estrada said. 
   
   The company, whose founder Travis VanderZanden was chief operating officer at Lyft and former vice president of global driver growth at Uber, started a pilot program Tuesday requiring San Francisco riders to take a photo showing how they parked the scooter at the end of their trip, Estrada said. 
   
   Users who repeatedly violate the rules will be suspended, said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for Bird. "San Franciscans have logged more than 90,000 miles on Birds, which shows that there is great demand for new, environmentally friendly ways to get around this great city," Baer said. 
   
   Santa Monica's city attorney in December filed a criminal complaint against Bird, saying the company was operating without a permit and had ignored required licensing and orders to remove the scooters from sidewalks. Bird pleaded no contest and agreed to pay more than $300,000 in fines and secure proper licenses. 
   
   Spokespeople for San Mateo, California-based LimeBike and San Francisco-based Skinny Labs Inc., also known as Spin, did not immediately return emails seeking comment Tuesday. 
   
   ___ 
   
   This story has been clarified to note Peskin was the law's author, not sponsor. 
   
   ___ 
   
   Associated Press writers Terry Chea and Ryan Nakashima contributed to this report. ||||| The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously voted today to approve the ordinance that looks to regulate electric scooters in San Francisco. The ordinance seeks to establish regulation and a permitting process that would enable the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency or Department of Public Works to take action against scooters from companies that don’t have an official permit from the city. 
   
   “Part of the brouhaha has been really the function of the fact, which was admitted yesterday, was that some of these companies have been a little bit fast and loose with the truth,” Supervisor Aaron Peksin, a sponsor of the ordinance, said today at the Board of Supervisors meeting.* 
   
   Peskin is referencing the fact that Lime, Spin and Bird deployed their respective scooters without permission from the city. The permitting scheme the city has in mind, Peskin said, is very similar to the one San Francisco has in place around stationless bike-sharing. 
   
   “This is a basic permitting scheme to allow the professional staff at SFMTA to permit these with sensible, regulatory frameworks and to be able to confiscate unpermitted vehicles or devices,” Peskin said. 
   
   He added that these electric scooters can absolutely serve some benefits to people in San Francisco, but that it does not mean the city should have to sacrifice its sidewalk space. The next step is for the BOS to continue working with the SFMTA to develop this regulation. At a hearing yesterday, the SFMTA said it hopes to open up the permitting process by May 1. 
   
   Earlier in the meeting today, the BOS adopted a resolution to develop a working group to inform future legislation around emerging technologies. One of the resolution’s sponsors, Supervisor Norman Yee, noted how he’s heard from seniors and people in wheelchairs who are “being imperiled and inconvenienced because they are having to navigate around scooters and bikes.” 
   
   He later added, the purpose of the working group would be to ensure the city is mindful of both the intended and unintended consequences of emerging technologies. 
   
   Yesterday, SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent cease-and-desist letters to Lime, Bird and Spin, but that doesn’t seem to be making any difference to Lime, Bird and Spin. All three of their respective scooters were found on the streets of San Francisco this morning. 
   
   “As it says in the letter, the City Attorney has laid out some recommendations for operation that he will like to see implemented by April 30; he has not requested an immediate stoppage of service,” a Bird spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We are taking his concerns very seriously and reviewing his recommendations for improving Bird in San Francisco.” Lime says it’s taking the City Attorney seriously, as well as the vote by the BOS today. “In response, we are updating our current community outreach plan to address the City’s concerns about pedestrian safety, parking compliance, and rider education,” a Lime spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We plan to roll out new initiatives, along with our complete response to the City Attorney by the end of next week.” Lime says it will also provide helmets to users, which will we able for pickup starting April 22. Similar to Bird, Lime will also start requiring people to submit a photo of their properly parked scooter at the end of the ride. Additionally, Lime says it will more clearly state that riding on or blocking sidewalks is illegal. I’ve reached out to Spin about its operations in San Francisco. I’ll update this story if I hear back. 
   
   An earlier version of this story misattributed Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s quotes to another supervisor.
target: – A battle between the city of San Francisco and companies that rent out motorized scooters has come to a head: On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance seeking to regulate the scooters, TechCrunch reports. At issue is the fact that the companies—LimeBike, Spin, and Bird—started operating three weeks ago without approval from the city, and city authorities say the electric scooters can be dangerous. "We cannot overstate the public safety hazard that operating motorized scooters pose on City sidewalks," said City Attorney Dennis Herrera in a cease-and-desist letter to the companies Monday, per Slate. The letter ordered the companies to stop operating until a plan was in place to make sure customers stop riding on sidewalks and without helmets or drivers licenses, and stop parking in places that block sidewalks, ramps, and transit stops. (They don't require a docking station and can thus be left anywhere when riders are done using them, the AP reports.) TechCrunch says the letter didn't "seem to be making any difference," as scooters from all three companies were spotted on San Francisco streets Tuesday. The Board of Supervisors is looking to put a permitting process in place for the scooter companies similar to the one that exists for bike-sharing companies operating in the city; it hopes to have the process in place by May 1. It also plans to establish fines starting at $125 when scooter regulations are violated.