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I have a darling friend whose job requires him to do quite a bit of driving around Lubbock, including the area near Texas Tech University's campus. He recently, and quite poetically, spoke out about irresponsible electric scooter riders:

I'm really surprised someone hasn't been turned into a pavement Jackson Pollock while riding a Lime scooter. Dark clothing and disregard for stop signs seems to be mandatory around here.

Injuries have happened in Lubbock. Lubbock doctors have seen head injuries, wrist sprains and broken ribs.

Many studies have been done on electric scooter injuries and fatalities, the later usually, but not always, involving a collision with a car or truck. Obviously, wearing dark colors at night and disregarding stop signs are a great way to get hit. And getting hit can get you killed.

Interestingly, most non-lethal scooter injuries requiring an ER visit occurred on the sidewalk. Some of the injured weren't even riders, but pedestrians who were hit with a scooter. From The Conversation.com:

Despite local rules prohibiting scooter-riding on sidewalks, more than 60% of crashes between cars and scooters happened when a sidewalk scooter rider and driver collided at either a driveway or crosswalk. The scooter was almost always coming from the car’s right, where drivers likely aren’t expecting moving vehicles to come off the sidewalk and into traffic.

Scooters, like bicycles, should not be driven on the sidewalk. But they're parked on the sidewalk, meaning that the rider must begin and end their trip there. It also seems to give riders mental permission to do so. My hope is that scooter riders near Texas Tech are savvy enough to use the bike lane when available for scooter use.

Electric scooters solve many problems and give college kids who may be otherwise vehicle-less an opportunity to explore areas off campus. I think that's really wonderful. But it's up to riders to use the scooters as safely as possible, and for cars and trucks to remember to look around them extra carefully near campus.

Oh, and driving them drunk is really stupid, too. You're almost guaranteed to fall and you'll likely get a PI charge.

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