Monday Meanderings - 12.10.2018

Your hometown probably does not have to be a major metropolis to suffer from the scooter syndrome.  You know, when there are battery powered "dockless" scooters scattered on every downtown corner. Or, in the case of college towns, they are also scattered on every campus corner, and all roads leading to the campus. And if you live in Austin, you may find them scattered far from the city core and far from the University as well.

We live more than 8 miles from the center of the UT campus and more than 10 miles from the 6th and Congress intersection, but scooters have made it as far out as Braker Lane - and further.

The other day, I started north on the I-35 access road only to encounter a long line of cars led by a police vehicle with flashing lights. Thinking that I had joined the end of a funeral procession, I settled in for a slow journey. Then I noticed that cars were cautiously passing the police vehicle, obeying the emergency lights that were flashing to indicate to move to the left lane.

When I drew even with the police car, I saw that the officer was tailing a dude on a scooter, who was cruising, slowly, northward on the access road. Evidently the scooterist was proceeding legally; the officer was merely providing safe escort, not pulling him over. The dude turned right on Yeager, heading toward Gold's Gym, and the officer bid him a safe journey, and we all continued north.

According to people who keep up with these things, there are more than 8,000 scooters strewn on the highways and byways of Austin, and more on the way with Lyft's announcement that they are adding another 500 Lyft-branded scooters to the mix. Recent estimates indicate that the number of trips has reached 100,000 per month. Prices vary, but at a typical $1.00 per rental and 15 cents a minute, the revenue makes this a very lucrative industry.

The City of Austin is scrambling to figure out how to deal with this phenomenon; it's clear that the scooters are popular, and based on the growing numbers, well used. There are problems, however, such as when scooters end up in piles of pedestrian-threatening obstacles. And there is the small matter of falling off and breaking something.

The potential for injury has caught the attention of the CDC, and they have announced that they will be conducting its first study of the health risks of dockless scooters by looking at the incidents and injuries that occurred in Austin over a 60-day period this fall, from September 5 to November 4. It will be the first study of its kind, focusing “on 37 EMS calls and 68 scooter injuries."

I confess that every time I see someone cruising down the street on one of these things, I think, "Where were these scooters when I was young enough to ride one?"  And then I remember the injuries and EMS calls, and know that I would end up a statistic in a CDC report if I tried.

Sigh.