Relax, it’s just a faster scooter
Re “Bird’s every-mile problem,” Opinion, May 15
The arrival of the Bird electric scooters in Venice has indeed created quite a bit of controversy and divisiveness in our seaside utopia. And I agree that they are fast becoming clutter and present a new danger on our roads.
But wow. Did op-ed article writer Nate Jackson wake up on the wrong side of the bed? What, exactly, is he railing against in this piece? Scooters? Homelessness? Silicon Beach taking over his town? All of it! Focus, man! And was it necessary to classify riders as “mannequins in flipflops?” I’m duly impressed that he chooses to ride a (manpowered) bike, but are people who opt for an electric alternative truly “pathetic”? With “wasted ears”?
Jackson’s piece offers no solutions, just whiny, holierthan-thou complaints. I ride an electric scooter, and guess what? I read a newspaper too. Shocking. Hillary Wilson
Santa Monica ::
I can hear the cry from Silicon Beach: “There used to be also an uproar against automobiles by the owners of buggies and horses, but progress prevailed.”
No, the complaint against Bird and its ilk is not a cry of luddite octogenarians, but it is an exposure of a legitimate public safety danger. I personally discovered quite some time ago the same situation that has caused so many problems in San Francisco, Santa Monica and, as Jackson described,Venice. Westwood is on its way to be ruined too.
The first time I was almost knocked over by a scooter in Westwood, I thought it was just overflow from UCLA. However, I learned quickly that this has nothing to do with university life and has a lot to do with an unregulated sector of the tech world.
I want to emphasize though that the root cause is not simply the recklessness of these corporate officials. No authority would be able to keep the scooterriders off the walkways. The sad truth is that even if these riders would obey all rules, they would expose themselves and all drivers to more accidents.
The answer is not regulation, but prohibition. Peter Hantos
Los Angeles