On Your Left: Addressing College Campuses Most Controversial Form Of Transportation.

Image credit: Steve Breen | Copyright 2017 Creators Syndicate (Editorial cartoon uploaded to The Week 2018, accessed 23 October 2024).

No, that ringing in your ears wasn’t part of the song in your headphones, unfortunately it wasn’t even a bicycle. No, it’s something far more nefarious. Two wheels. One handle. You better get out of the way, because odds are, we aren't moving. 

It's time I finally take accountability. No notes app apology, no YouTube reconciliation, I need to address the elephant in the room: my scooter. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how I even got into the scooter game. Maybe the siren song of the scooter’s whiny electric hum was too much for me to resist, or perhaps I was drunk on the notion of the sheer power trip that was sure to come from dominating my own lane of traffic. Either way, it’s time for me to be honest with myself. 

I’m not so sure where this apology should even begin. As a scooter-user I acknowledge that I’ve wronged several demographics across this city. I know the oldheads look upon me with disgust, reminiscing of a time where they traversed through treacherous terrain on foot to obtain a simple education. I know what they think, what you all think of us: that we’ve found a lazy substitute for walking, and maybe you guys are right. Maybe scooters really are an agent of chaos, destined to terrorize pedestrians and dismantle the very idea of what sidewalks are meant to be. 

Motorists, you deserve some recognition as well. I’ve noticed the looks you’ve given me in our near-crashes—usually petrified—not because you’ve almost taken a scooterist’s life, but because you know that getting trampled on a scooter would mean denying one of a death worthy of dignity, going out almost as embarrassingly as we arrive to class. And to the rest of you, I understand the stigma, scooters are for children. They belong in the same category as yo-yos, fidget spinners, and slap bracelets—relics of a by-gone era when self-respect was negotiable. So, yes, I deserve the ridicule, the side-eyes, the hushed whispers behind my back: “Is that a grown adult riding a scooter? 

But what have we become if we can’t embrace our playful side?  

Who am I to snuff out another’s flame?

I won’t stand for this. 

So no… you don’t get this, not this one. 

YDSA President Rohin Ghosh did not put his life on the line pimping out the New Mexico Avenue bike lane for you esoteric fucks to point and laugh as I get from point A to point B. Mommy and Daddy didn’t buy me a car—just a 60k a year education—so I don’t have the liberty of pulling up to campus in four wheel drive. For a brief moment there,  I almost became the very thing I loathe the most: a sheep, content on buying into a culture that critiques creativity, scrappiness, and fun. 

So, next time you think to snicker at scooter riders, instead recognize them for who they really are: the unsung heroes of the college experience, wielding their scooters as a manifesto against the relentless pursuit of status. These brave souls challenge the status quo, one that equates worth with horsepower. So while I notice your glares, sheltered behind the opulent power of the windshield, I am content, knowing that I am part of a movement that is bigger than myself. 

Maybe I’m an idealist, the world I dream of may be unattainable, but I’ll be damned if we don’t fight for it. For now though, we have no choice but to just keep pushing… two wheels at a time.