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Roger Rabbits with |
Down Cameron Rd like a bolt out of the blue. The black actually. It was 5.30am.
A guy, well a scooter or scooterist on an e-scooter, scooting through the drear. Like he was late for his own funeral.
Because he sailed, well scootered – or is it scooted? – straight through a red light at the 9th Ave intersection. A ‘life stood still’ moment while I processed all that could have gone gorily, gruesomely, fatally wrong. Where are my statins?
An early morning jogger stopped mid-stride. “Idiot!” he said. I like people who encapsulate their thoughts – makes things digestible and easily understood.
So dark, wet, no helmet, and busting red lights. Go figure. No helmet – why not?
“Doin’ 50!” encapsulated the jogger again. Because that scooter was humming, whining. “Don’t wish him bad,” said jogger.” But he’s not long with us. Lemming!”
Lemming? Urban myth I explained to jogger.
“Pardon?” said jogger.
Simply not true
“You likened that short term New Zealander to a lemming, presumably in the mistaken belief that lemmings self-destruct, throw themselves off cliffs. It’s simply not true.”
Jogger was out for a jog, not a zoological dissertation. But before the morning sun had even yawned, broken wind and opened the curtains, he got one.
“What?” he sputtered.
“The idea lemmings mass suicide is a fallacy popularised by the Disney’s pseudo-doco White Wilderness. “It was all staged,” I explained. “Movie makers imported lemmings and chucked them off a cliff to create the illusion of a mass death plunge.”
The movie was described as the “worst winner of the best doco category” ever. “But it was all bollocks.”
Jogger snapped. He encapsulated something under his breath, and took off in any direction, as long as it was away from me. Some people won’t be helped.
That was a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t seen the scooterer, scooter, since. I’m starting to think the worst. But we are noticing a lot of kamikaze scooter behaviour.
‘Bloody business’
I stopped at the traffic lights outside that Chapel St shopping precinct, and opened the window to politely suggest to an e-scooter rider that perhaps – no, definitely – should wear a helmet. “I lot of things could easily go very wrong,” I said caringly.
He told me to “mind my bloody business”. Charming.
I suggested it became my “bloody business” when he suddenly required 24-hour care for a life-altering traumatic brain injury, because I would be paying for his keep.
I remember a dentist telling me to only brush the teeth I want to keep. Perhaps scooter riders should do a quick check list of all the faculties or intellectual abilities they would like to keep before scooting off without a helmet.
All those cognitive or mental processes involving learning and comprehension, thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem solving. What about communicating – do you really want to fumble for the right words, or any words?
A few things to ponder while you can. Before you fall off your scooter.
Icky stuff
And, heaven forbid, if it was me who accidently knocked you off your scooter, I wouldn’t want your seriously compromised lifestyle on my conscience.
I also wouldn’t want to commit my Sunday afternoons to visiting someone who’s needlessly doolally and owns a bent and busted e-scooter.
Scooter told me to ‘eff’ off, and took off. Without a helmet.
As a driver, scooters scare me. I get near an e-scooter and I think of icky stuff, soft tissue injuries, the shredding of flesh. I see compound fractures. At least those can mend, but head trauma? Seems to be a finality about head trauma. I always think scooters are dreadfully exposed, vulnerable. Small wheels, sensitive balance and steering, what does it take to tip a scooter over. And a rider off. Probably not much.
Another incident recently on Vale St – a smooth, cocksure young dude is riding his scooter towards town, in the cycle lane and against the traffic flow. Good choices friend. Again, no helmet, he’s on his mobile phone and steering with one hand. What can possibly go wrong? I kept listening out for a siren – an ambulance or a fire engine, or both. Or a hearse.
Love on the tundra
Another peak-hour scooter, a person scooting on a scooter, is looking around for cars that might threaten – from behind, from the side. Good on him. He’s nervous, feeling exposed. But while looking out for cars, he’s not looking where he’s going. And should he be without a helmet? Probably not. Definitely not.
What’s the safest number of people on an e-scooter? Even doubling up is dangerous. E-scooters are specifically engineered for one. Two people compromise stability, braking efficiency and control. So the three helmet-less teenage females, on one e-scooter on Marine Parade last weekend were not playing the odds, not playing smart.
We start and finish with lemmings. When populations spike every few years, because there’s nothing but love on the frozen tundra, the rodents migrate en masse to new sustainable feeding grounds. There’s some collateral damage on the way which is misinterpreted as self-destruction.