Over the summer, Raleigh experienced the great migration of Bird scooters to downtown, Cameron Village and NC State’s campus.

Similar to LimeBikes that exist on campus, customers use the Bird smartphone app to unlock the scooters and ride them with a maximum of 15 miles per hour. The initial cost is $1 plus 15 cents per minute during the ride.

While there is no partnership with the city of Raleigh, according to a statement from Bird in News and Observer, Bird scooters showed up to Raleigh because of its effort to ‘commute smart’ and reduce the carbon footprint within cities by providing an alternative solution for the parts of an individual’s trip that public transportation might not cover.

According to Michael Moore, the director of transportation for the city of Raleigh, although Bird scooters have appeared throughout the city, there has yet to be developed legislation put in place associated with the company in the city.

“[For] Bird, and any other entities, we usually have some license or permit to allow people to do private business in the public right of way,” Moore said. “There was no such permit or license applied for or granted to Bird.”

Bryan Scoggin, a first-year studying engineering, said that after one ride on a Bird scooter he understands how the transportation device could be convenient to students.

“I’ve only ridden it once, but it was a pretty fun time,” Scoggin said. “They go really fast and it’s nice because they’re relatively cheap so if you need somewhere to go fast or just want to have fun and cruise around, it’s really fun.”

While there is no partnership between the Bird scooter company and NC State like there is with LimeBike, Jacob Wells, a first-year studying animal science, said that he would like to see more scooters on campus.

“Having more Bird scooters on campus would be nice, because it’s hard finding them sometimes,” Wells said. “There’s tons of LimeBikes but no Birds.”

As LimeBikes and other dockless bikes have already made their appearances in Raleigh, the city’s primary focus was creating guidelines for those entities. However, Moore said that they are working to include scooters in those rules.

“We at the city have been working on some regulatory structures that would allow certain types of dockless technologies,” Moore said. “We have, primarily, been focused on dockless bikes because we already had them here in the city. We are working to craft some guide and some regulation around how we would incorporate scooters into that as well.”

According to The News & Observer, accidents involving users on Bird scooters have already occurred. To ensure the utmost safety for students and prevent injuries while regulations are still being developed at the city level, Moore urges for NC State students to be aware of what they’re agreeing to when they use an electric scooter and use appropriate safety measures like helmets.

“I would encourage anyone who uses a Bird scooter, to look closely at the terms of use and to abide by those,” Moore said. “And that would mean, we want you to wear a helmet, we want you to operate safely, we want you to operate in the street where the terms of use say you will do that.”

In Chapel Hill, the UNC Office of Transportation has temporarily banned Bird scooters from campus until the university has both created regulations for the moped-like vehicle and explored a possible partnership with the company.

On the topic of future regulations, Moore mentioned that the legislation in the works will focus on the safety of users.

“I really don’t want to speculate, but I will tell you that the work that we’re doing is focused around the safety of all the users of the right of way,” Moore said.