I feel very ambivalent about scooters. On one hand I hope they do actually take some cars off the road, on the other, I think they’re mostly used by people who would otherwise take the bus, bike or even walk instead.

And in the meantime the scooters are dumped everywhere around town: on sidewalks, in cycle lanes, in the parks and forests, thrown into the lake at the north end of the town. It’s always extra dispiriting to find them discarded in the undergrowth out in the countryside - presumably at the very end of their range. One time I found a scooter that someone had either intentionally or accidentally left so that it fell over and smashed a ground floor window.

I’ve personally seen so many accidents and near-misses, including some too-young kids who must’ve hacked a scooter and crashed it into a parked car, a colleague who fell head-over the bars after a drinking binge and cut up his face, a friend who broke an arm, and a young woman who was walking across a plaza in town while reading her phone and tripped over a scooter that someone had just thrown down there and landed smack on her face.

Also the strange behavior of people riding who seem not to consider they’re bound by the rules of any other transport system - cars, bikes or walkers - and simply sail unconcernedly across junctions with red lights, or in the midst of walkers on the sidewalk.

I’d love to see them work better - I hate cars way more - but the anarchic spirit of their introduction hasn’t been the best for everyone living in the city.