It usually only takes one serious incident to start a full riot on scooters. Last month there was a tragic event where one woman was killed by someone with a scooter who didn’t see her crossing. Total outrage! Ban these things immediately. There’s even a draft law in the parliament to forbid anyone riding a scooter unless they got a license of some sorts. Meanwhile, there was another accident where a guy was speeding and hit a woman on a pedestrian crossing. People were like “yeah, but maybe if she hadn’t run on that crossing, and if she made eye contact with the driver, maybe it would’ve saved her life…”
Absolutely. And to be clear I’m totally open to discussions on how to limit or reduce those few incidents that do occur. But a blanket ban across the entire city is a ridiculous response to what can only be described as minor issues in the context of the problems an entire city faces.
As someone who lives in a city center with a fair number of scooters, and as someone who never uses them (I prefer to bike) I do agree they can be a nuisance at times. But I truly don’t understand the amount of angst over them while my very life is menaced by car drivers on a daily basis.
I can only assume, as the article obliquely implies, it’s a lot of entitled drivers who just want to have sole rights to use public space and mistakenly believe that banning other ways of getting around will just magically eliminate those irresponsible people from the equation.
But I don’t live in this city so maybe I’m generalizing my own experiences here too much, I don’t know.
It usually only takes one serious incident to start a full riot on scooters. Last month there was a tragic event where one woman was killed by someone with a scooter who didn’t see her crossing. Total outrage! Ban these things immediately. There’s even a draft law in the parliament to forbid anyone riding a scooter unless they got a license of some sorts. Meanwhile, there was another accident where a guy was speeding and hit a woman on a pedestrian crossing. People were like “yeah, but maybe if she hadn’t run on that crossing, and if she made eye contact with the driver, maybe it would’ve saved her life…”
Absolutely. And to be clear I’m totally open to discussions on how to limit or reduce those few incidents that do occur. But a blanket ban across the entire city is a ridiculous response to what can only be described as minor issues in the context of the problems an entire city faces.
As someone who lives in a city center with a fair number of scooters, and as someone who never uses them (I prefer to bike) I do agree they can be a nuisance at times. But I truly don’t understand the amount of angst over them while my very life is menaced by car drivers on a daily basis.
I can only assume, as the article obliquely implies, it’s a lot of entitled drivers who just want to have sole rights to use public space and mistakenly believe that banning other ways of getting around will just magically eliminate those irresponsible people from the equation.
But I don’t live in this city so maybe I’m generalizing my own experiences here too much, I don’t know.