Scoot along in sense and caution

It wasn’t too long ago that I cringed when I saw Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas Salas.

The septuagenarian almost a year ago was careening down a paved walkway on a black electric scooter as part of a photo op designed to bring attention to the city’s efforts to establish parameters for their use in the city.

Careening is relative, I know.

A toddler still grasping the finer points of bipedal movement and gravity while stumbling through a gauntlet of sharp corners and slippery kitchen floors may be viewed as careening. The frazzled and anxious adult moving along behind said baby in case it falls, is not careening though both are travelling at relatively the same rate.

Likewise, a person riding along on a motorized two-wheeled vehicle can be viewed as careening or not depending on their age and fragility.

To decide for yourself whether Casillas Salas was careening you can watch video of her careening/cruising along on her mayoral Facebook page. For what it’s worth the mayor handled the ride well and rode while wearing a helmet. But I have digressed.

In my neck of the woods electric scooters have been around long enough to go from being considered a delightful mode of transportation to eyesores doubling as chariots of death.
They have caused fights, accidents, lawsuits and at least one death (in Chula Vista at that).

Now they are arriving in Chula Vista.

In the right hands and under the proper circumstances they can be fun ways to get from point A to point B. Based on my experience and observations, the trick, however, is knowing what those circumstances are.

The right hands might be the ones that belong to bodies that can get up from a soft, comfy chair on the first try. They belong to a person who when getting up from his chair for the third time to go to the bathroom, doesn’t make groaning sounds as he rises from a sofa. Or whose joints don’t pop and snap as stands up after kneeling down in the garden to pull weeds and praise flowers.

The right hands are attached to a body that can trip over a curb or a shadow and not worry about falling forward and breaking their wrists.

Or knees. Or elbows and hips.

The right circumstances for many riding scooters at a rate no faster than the average Galapagos tortoise can run. In snow. While wearing a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, a facemask and layers of winter clothing.

But not everybody sees things my way. They’ll take a chance, hop aboard the two-wheeled cruisers and zip along sidewalks and streets and alleys. They will leave them parked wherever they please and pedestrians will have to dodge them while motorists grumble as they see them with their own street parking corrals. The electric scooters, like the electric bikes and the shared cars before them, are coming to Chula Vista. Let’s see how long it takes to adapt.