I’m not sure where to start today’s rant blog. Perhaps I’ll start with the the woman on the mobility scooter who sounded her horn at me because she thought I was holding her up as I walked along a pavement with my walking stick.
It is legal to drive one on the pavement, it seems, though not legal to drive one on a cycle path. Strange laws…
It probably isn’t legal to zip along the pavement sounding your horn and imitating Boadicea, as we always used to call her before we were told Boudicca was the proper name. Even the spell-checker doesn’t like Boudicca.
However, unless I’m going to set myself up with a bodycam I don’t suppose I’ll be able to do much about it.
Little Old Lady out Shopping – photo from pixabay.com
That has set me thinking about old people and an experiment I have in mind. We have an endless supply of them, so if we lose a few along the way I don’t suppose it will matter. Well, it will matter to them, but it won’t matter to me.
My idea is to fit Mobility Scooters with defibrillators wired into the horns. Sound your horn at me and you will get a high voltage reminder about courteous driving.
OK, it might see one or two of them off, but in conservation terms they are of Least Concern so it’s not like losing a Black-Footed Ferret or an Orangutan.
This way we can teach the drivers better road manners and, in all probability, liven some of them up. The unlucky few who can’t cope with 1,000 volts will serve as an example to anyone else who wants to run me down on the footpath.
(Two cautionary notes before any elderly readers get upset – I’m old too. I’m officially old enough for free prescriptions and tonight, at the pharmacy I wasn’t quizzed as to whether I had to pay for prescriptions. Though I’m not yet old enough to spread terror on the footpaths in a mobility scooter.
And two, a serious point – I was once rammed in the back of my legs by someone driving one of these scooters in a Supermarket. They need tests and they need insurance! And I need protection.)
I was once run into twice by the same person. 🙂
With your liberal gun laws are you not at least allowed to shoot their tyres out for a second offence? It must have been a severe test of your patience.
Love your observations! My husband drives one of these scooters, and I agree with every word you wrote. When you set up a test group, I’ll sign him up 🙂
Thank you – getting volunteers was likely to be a stumbling block but you have solved part of the problem. 🙂
Oh my goodness, you are indeed on a rant! But it gave me my second belly laugh of the day and I do admit that people on scooters honking are indeed rude and should be put out in traffic to learn their lesson. Or have their batteries run down.
Yes, a Battery Flattening Ray would be useful invention. 🙂
This, ahem, is a problem we don’t have in Maine. At least not in the hinterlands, which is pretty much everywhere in Maine. 😉
Is that a lack of scooters or a lack of old people?
Lots and lots of old people. Not many scooters.
You’d have thought the cold winters would keep numbers down. I suppose it just makes them tougher. 🙂
I had no idea about free prescriptions after a certain age. If I can hold out with all my ailments for another ten years, maybe I can everything sorted then for free!
I was amazed when I reached 60, I hadn’t realised there was a good side to getting old. 🙂
😊
Excellent observations and solutions!
Thank you. I would like to think that after my death (under the wheels of a mobility scooter in all probability) my scheme will live on.
One of my bugbears is the people who drag wheelie bags across your feet; then there’s the man who, with flags and other stuff fluttering aloft on poles, rides his mobility scooter along the A35 in the road
Both good points, well made. We used to have a man that drove one on the road with grey weather covers – on a dull, rainy day it was almost impossible to see,
These scooters can fairly nip along. Maybe pedestrians need wing mirrors.
A good point – and a useful Christmas gift for those of us who have trouble saying anything other than “books” when asked.