Accidents will happen
It's more than a little odd that a city that thumps its chest all day long about wanting zero fatalities on the roads also actively promotes the use of rental electric scooters. But that's Portland. When you elect spoiled, unemployable children to public office, they often have some weird ideas, and you get to pay to watch them play out. This one goes back to the Chloe From Homeroom days on the City Council, but it's still going strong under the bobbleheads who pass for the city's "transportation" bureau.
Kyle Iboshi of KGW ran a story the other day confirming the obvious, that riding an electric scooter is way dangerous, especially if you don't wear a helmet but even if you do. He talks to emergency room doctors who see the fallen riders in all sorts of injured states, including dead on arrival, on the regular.
E-scooter-related injuries requiring emergency room visits or hospitalization have climbed sharply in the Portland area, according to newly released Oregon Health Authority data. Hospitals treated 127 riders in 2023. That number jumped to 185 in 2024 and reached 198 in just the first nine months of 2025.
You probably should have to have a license to ride one of those things. Just so you don't kill yourself, or somebody else. But this being Portlandia, any clown can ride, no matter how inept or impaired. And everywhere you look, there's a scooter on the sidewalk, waiting for you to hop on. A private contractor makes a buck, naturally.
The risk is bad enough, but the denial is worse. According to City Hall, you're supposed to ignore the doctors, ignore your common sense, and ignore your lyin' eyes. Repeat after me: Scooters are safer than walking. The problem is the cars. The Multi-Modal Wizards have spoken.
Just another reminder that not all the snake oil comes from Washington, D.C.
Kudos to Iboshi...PBOT loves to hide this stat (claims they don't know)....one kid got killed when his scooter hit a pothole--score a twofer for PBOT. This is all part of the anti-car cult that is about to make 82d St. a disaster.
ReplyDeleteI wrote letters to the entire (then 5 person) City Council when these things first appeared. Two incidents prompted that: 1) while walking, I was pushed into a fence off the sidewalk by a scooter rider to make more room for himself; and 2) while approaching the Broadway Bridge in my car during rush hour, 3 or 4 of these morons zipped in front of me from the right (going the wrong way on a one-way street) causing an abrupt stop and nearly a chain-reaction fender-bender.
ReplyDeleteOf course, nothing was done then...I never even got a response to any of my letters.
The City should have NEVER allowed these menaces to operate and their insurance company should refuse to indemnify the City in any way for any accidents/damage resulting from their use.
Of course, nothing will happen now either. It's the Way of Stupid.
I remember when they first introduced this scheme - there was some discussion about requiring helmet rentals along with the scooters. Other Cities were doing it that way (or in some cases, banishing the scooters period), but helmets would have to be cleaned after each use, and in Portland nobody wanted to pay for & manage that staffing, so it didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteWell since the majority of council members have never progressed past the teenage social and mental stage, no wonder scooters...
ReplyDelete