E-scooter riders have no legal lane in most US cities

E-scooter riders traveling at 15mph occupy a dangerous no-man's-land: sidewalks are illegal in most municipalities, bike lanes end abruptly or don't exist on the majority of roads, and riding in car lanes at 15mph alongside 35-45mph traffic is suicidal. So what? Riders are forced to constantly switch between sidewalk, bike lane, and road mid-trip, each transition creating a collision risk. So what? This means every single ride is an improvised navigation of conflicting rules, and riders develop unpredictable riding patterns that frustrate both pedestrians and drivers. So what? Injury rates spike — the CDC found e-scooter injury rates are 2-3x higher than bicycles per trip. So what? Cities respond by banning or heavily restricting scooters rather than building infrastructure, which kills the mode entirely. This persists because transportation infrastructure planning operates on 10-20 year cycles, and scooter adoption happened in under 2 years. Existing road design standards from AASHTO and NACTO have no formal classification for 15mph electric vehicles that aren't bicycles, so engineers have no playbook to follow even when funding exists.