Retrograde Steps
The City of Oulu in Finland used to be of the very best cities in the world for pedestrians, cycles and slow moving mopos and scooters, as they had separate tracks for these apart from the roads. Only in the city centre, where all traffic is slow moving, did the scooters merge with the road traffic.
It was possible for me to go from our home to the office without once driving on the road. It was fast and safe.
Some pedestrians, quite unwarrantedly, started a campaign to take the scooters off these special tracks. Last week this was implemented.
My first reaction after driving my scooter on the roads was that the number of fatal accidents of scooter drivers is going to increase sharply. Also it will be quite impossible for scooter drivers to be on the road once the snow arrives. I used to be able to drive my scooter all through winter. albeit slowly, when I was driving on the slow moving tracks.
The reason why accidents will increase is that most scooters do not have the power to drive at the speed limits set for the roads - 40, 50, 60 and 80 kmph. 40 kmph YES. 50 kmph at a stretch, YES. But 60 and 80 kmph is quite impossible.
Hence, motorists - car and truck drivers will be impatient when they come up behind a slow moving scooter, and the impatience will make them to swing out into the centre to overtake these scooters.
This will have two effects. The oncoming traffic will be jeopardised and secondly, when these bigger vehicles overtake these light weight scooters, they will cause the scooters to wobble and be unstable.
As a result the only conclusion to expect will be a possible accident of either the larger vehicle or the scooter.
People will express concern, but it must be said that these activists who lobbied for this quite unnecessary change - will have blood on their hands!
