Denver Taught Me to Hate Electric Scooters

In case you were unaware, electric scooters are the hot garbage of transportation. I hadn’t planned to say anything, but I have friends in Chicago who are excited by the prospect of electric scooter pilot programs in the city. I’ve now lived in a scooter-friendly city for two months and have developed an informed opinion: fuck scooters and the douche-bags who ride them.

Why? The sense of scooter entitlement is almost as bad as the driving. Hipsters abandon their rides willy-nilly, leaving electric corpses in the middle of sidewalks, handicap spaces, parking lots, in front of monuments and vistas, in shopping carts, and even on top of road signs. People I call “scooter herders” come by every now and then to walk groups of these infernal devices back to scooter-rich environments. The herders act entitled to the space they take up while doing it. Fuck these guys, too.

I’ve seen scooters buzz walkers in city parks, ruining the peace and quiet of a stroll with careless displays of kamikaze speeding on shared paths. There’s no sense of safety for pedestrians on sidewalks. Not only do you have to look both ways crossing the street, you have to watch your six in between. Riders will zoom up behind you, hollering for you to make way. Most sidewalks in neighborhoods are not level, so these “riders” also expect you to cede the flat sections and hop into the grass. I don’t feel like I have a right of way anywhere.

The only bonus? I can now tell what restaurants to avoid by the number of scooters scattered outside.

If you know of a scooter program coming to a city near you, fight it. Fight it hard.