> Banning e-scooters wholesale rather than figuring out how they can be part of a safe mobility culture is like banning combustion vehicles at the onset of the invention of cars.
Plenty of cities did just that, after a rash of pedestrian (and equestrian) deaths. What resulted was a multi-decade lobbying effort that redefined the "street" to mean a thoroughfare for combustion vehicles.
Plenty of cities are now walking back that effort and are once again banning combustion vehicles in their cores, or at least are not dedicating the space entirely to cars and trucks. A ho-hum example is Kaiserslautern, Germany, where you can drive in the city core, but it's just much more efficient to park in a lot outside the core and walk.
In the process of typing this comment, I discovered that I agree with your overall point, but I would suggest ditching the "protected lane" part and simply take away the dedicated space for cars.
