Bird has filed for bankruptcy protection. (Ty O'Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images) When scooter-rental company Bird Global (BRDS) went public in 2021, it told investors ridership was ...

Just a few years ago, electric scooters seemed poised to take over city streets. Early adopters saw them as a fun, fast and cheap. Critics said they were a nuisance and a hazard to pedestrians.

“A lot of people hate these things,” Michael Ghadieh, owner of SF Wheels, which repairs the scooters for Bird, told the site. “I don’t get it. They physically want to damage them.