3 ms·

Old people can't be expected to walk far or drive scooters and bikes everyday. You need to give some serious readjustment to your mental image of “old people”.

Old people can't be expected to walk far or drive scooters and bikes everyday. You need to give some serious readjustment to your mental image of “old people”. Perhaps the word you’re looking for is “disabled” or “differently-abled”, depending upon your preference. Some of those people, maybe disproportionately so, also happen to be old. I’d type more, but this AARP member crashed his scooter on the way to work on Friday, and my shoulder’s still a little sore. Wear your helmets, mine cracked so that my skull wouldn’t.

ivanhoe 7y ago
I myself am 40+ and seriously obese, so I'm definitely counting myself into that "too old for e-scooter" group, but I actually had in mind average around-70-and-plus people around me, like my parents and their friends, the "real old people". They can walk but can't walk across the city every day, they can go on a leisure bike ride, but not ride it uphill (and we don't all live in flatland like Dutch), and you definitely can't seriously expect them to move around that way every day all around the year. You can't expect me either, btw, really sorry if I don't match nowadays modern lifestyle standards. Which are btw ridiculous as combination of walking and eco-friendly public transportation are much more sustainable (and for many enjoyable) solution than everyone zipping around in their e-scooters and e-bikes and whatnot which are all being charged everyday from the grid.
- mikestew 7y ago
  but I actually had in mind average around-70-and-plus people around me, like my parents and their friends, the "real old people". Guess what, me, too! My anecdata are from a more active group, though. So we have differing views of the world, and that’s fine. I’ve never been overweight a day in my life, so I try to avoid general, “all ya need to do is...” It demonstrates a lack of empathy and a small world view. But I would ask the same of others. Yes, there are people with limited mobility. I get that. But they’re still a minority, and does it need to be brought up every g-ddamned time the subject comes up that not everyone can ride a scooter? Most people can, can we talk about them for a minute before dive off into the edge cases? We can talk about limited mobility options, no we will talk about them, just maybe later. But the reason we have cities over run with cars now is because way too many people who are otherwise capable think they can’t hobble more than a city block, and only under perfect conditions.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    And some of us who are perfectly happy to walk to get to places where practical (which is certainly not where I live) consider scooters dangerous. So, no, I’m not going to ride a scooter or a bike in a city.

ivanhoe 7y ago

I myself am 40+ and seriously obese, so I'm definitely counting myself into that "too old for e-scooter" group, but I actually had in mind average around-70-and-plus people around me, like my parents and their friends, the "real old people". They can walk but can't walk across the city every day, they can go on a leisure bike ride, but not ride it uphill (and we don't all live in flatland like Dutch), and you definitely can't seriously expect them to move around that way every day all around the year. You can't expect me either, btw, really sorry if I don't match nowadays modern lifestyle standards. Which are btw ridiculous as combination of walking and eco-friendly public transportation are much more sustainable (and for many enjoyable) solution than everyone zipping around in their e-scooters and e-bikes and whatnot which are all being charged everyday from the grid.

mikestew 7y ago
but I actually had in mind average around-70-and-plus people around me, like my parents and their friends, the "real old people". Guess what, me, too! My anecdata are from a more active group, though. So we have differing views of the world, and that’s fine. I’ve never been overweight a day in my life, so I try to avoid general, “all ya need to do is...” It demonstrates a lack of empathy and a small world view. But I would ask the same of others. Yes, there are people with limited mobility. I get that. But they’re still a minority, and does it need to be brought up every g-ddamned time the subject comes up that not everyone can ride a scooter? Most people can, can we talk about them for a minute before dive off into the edge cases? We can talk about limited mobility options, no we will talk about them, just maybe later. But the reason we have cities over run with cars now is because way too many people who are otherwise capable think they can’t hobble more than a city block, and only under perfect conditions.
- ghaff 7y ago
  And some of us who are perfectly happy to walk to get to places where practical (which is certainly not where I live) consider scooters dangerous. So, no, I’m not going to ride a scooter or a bike in a city.