To the editor:
I have to concur with the letters to the editor concerning scooters in your April 18 paper. This past Monday, I was waiting to cross Duke Street in front of Whole Foods. A family of four, two parents and two children – one elementary school age, the other middle school age – were riding scooters without helmets west on Duke Street coming up to that intersection.
There is no shoulder on that part of Duke Street and the traffic moves very fast there when the lights are green. The older child was bringing up the rear shouting out to her father that her scooter wasn’t working. She was using her foot to move the scooter along, like an old-school scooter. This, while traffic was whizzing by them. Talk about an accident waiting to happen. I breathed a sigh of relief when they turned off onto Reinecker Street.
So, along with the other problems e.g., scooters lying all over the place and irresponsible riders, I think we need to add assuring maintenance and the safety of the equipment itself. People put way too much faith in anything that sounds techy, disruptive and alt to actually work and be regularly maintained.
-Stephanie Collins, Alexandria
