Why did you write "kph" if you are aware of the correct "km/h"?

And what, only wake up 8,000 people instead? I’ve never heard an unmuffled one, but those little 50 cc fuckers are screaming loud in the high pitch frequencies - a perfect recipe for wakefulness. I often wake up when one of those assholes drives within a block of me at night. It doesn’t even have to traverse my street.

Even if it wakes 5,000 people, who then take 1 hr on avg to return to sleep, 5,000 man hours per scooter per day of lost sleep has to have a measurable loss of productivity and even quality of life.

Muffled scooters are still fucking loud.

The related fun fact to that would be that high-pitched sounds are more annoying and perceived to be louder than low frequency sounds with the same db.

I’m sure my sleep is more disrupted living in a city with an occasional 2-stroke engine screaming by than it would be if I lived next to a highway with that relatively constant and relatively distant ambient tire noise.

The scooters they mention in the article are the e-scooters you ride standing up in the bike lane.

No they are not. That makes no sense. Stand-up e-scooters are relatively quiet. Quotes from the article (emphasis added):

“worst of all, the high-pitched wail of motor scooters that speed by every few seconds.”

“Motorcycles and scooters — often with their exhaust systems illegally modified to boost noise and power”

“The noise can be ear-splitting,”

Obviously you would not describe a stand-up scooter as ear-splitting or capable of waking someone up. They’re talking about gas small gas combustion engines, most of which are the worst variety on scooters: 2-stroke.

Or if you meant the OP’s article is talking about e-scooters, that article actually covered both:

“Weight rates are usually over 10 times more favourable for the average motorbike or scooter and, of course, even better for lighter vehicles such as electric bicycles or kick-scooters.”

My reaction was to the idea that motor scooters are more favorable by a factor of 10 due to the weight -- which is true, but my criteria is more complex than just ecocide-avoidance… I want my sleep too!