Clockwise left to right, motor vehicles.

New York, N.Y.

There are lots and lots of problems with this city. Understandably and obviously with commutes because of the MTA’s spiraling decay and making a living in the service industry if you can’t afford a vehicle, insurance and the scarcities and expenses of parking and the abominable state of mass transit and lousy conditions of the roads on the streets and highways. So your New York City Council is looking to remediate these problems by legalizing electronic motored bicycles (unlicensed motorcyles) and electronic motor scooters.

Now yours truly is a rider of a manual functioning bike (a bicycle) so there is going to be a heavy bias against these alleged “environmental friendly” vehicle menaces. But these kinds of motorcycles have been used by restaurant delivery men for almost a decade and now the streets are inundated with them because of the app food delivery industry. The predominance of them actually equal the amount of app hail car service vehicles.

To get to the point of this screed, a vast majority of these license plate less motorcycle riders are the biggest and most consistent scofflaws around. Have always been and have got even worse. Running the reds, riding on sidewalks and the opposite direction, even while going on their top speed, which can be up to 25 to 30 mph. These motored cycle riders will even cut you off you off or brush you by if they even get a millimeter of space.

And despite the occasional NYPD sweep of these motorcycles (because that’s what they are;. don’t like the liberty I am taking with this, fuck you) the recklessness still persists. Because of the rabid demands of instant gratification and convenience of their customers hungering for their afternoon specials and 10 dollar ramen and salads.

The asinine thing about this is not that they’re going to be mandated street legal, is that these elected hacks have been oblivious to these silent machines for about a decade. And it wouldn’t be a damn surprise if they have ordered from these habitual road rule breakers themselves. But it’s certain that their millenial-aged aides sure have.

But the only way to justify this is because last summer this city legalized these motorcycles just as they instituted a bike share borough wide program that included two startups putting them out (all of them immensely failed and now phased out entirely by shCitiBike, now owned by Lyft, ensuring it’s monopoly), which was blatantly unfair to delivery workers who were getting fined 500 bucks and having their motorcycles confiscated for riding the same things as the bike share customers use for commuting to train stations and hip beer halls.

So that’s the only “good” thing about this law is that it will relieve a lot of grief and will cease the blatant arbitrary discrimination against them, even though this could have been solved if there were fines to the restaurants and the app-start ups for encouraging and enabling their delivery workers to use these motorcycles in the first place instead of leveling it on the scofflaw yet struggling riders. As for this will encourage them to be responsible and respectful of traffic rules, don’t bet on it. Food delivery has become a race to the bottom dog eat dog competition and these workers have to work long hours and fast to make their commissions and tips, especially to afford the exorbitant inflating rents to live in this fucking town.

Now the very bad things. The use of electric scooters has been prevalent in Manhattan and NW Brooklyn and Queens for quite a few years and has seen a growth spurt since springtime. Because of the looming apocalypse that will spring forth from the L Train Canarsie Tunnel shutdown for a year (5 minutes to midnight), hipster pandering twit City Councilman Rafael Espinal is super motivated for this bill to clear being that a shady scooter rideshare startup he’s got a hardon for called Bird is looking to corner the market for their “service”, especially since they blatantly threw their motor scooters on the streets surreptitously with absolutely no permission at all so they can establish themselves and corner the market and monopolize it. Which is the number one reason why these bad motor scooters should not be on the streets, especially the ones with the BIRD label.

And those BIRD motherfuckers are recidivist offenders too. But it’s in the nature of these tech douches to drop their shitty ideas and induce it on the communities in their lame warm and funny deceptive interpretations of sharing and caring for the environment.  Like the stupid bikeshares, when your done with your scooter you can just leave it on the ground for the next customer to use it. The prospect of this will foster pollution with selfish users leaving them on peoples yards, street curbs and sidewalks. And being that these bike and scooter share programs also foster gentrification while backed by billion dollar investments (!!!) it will see it’s share of activist vandalism.

These things are accidents waiting to happen, and going by the way of their users it’s inevitable. Compounding this certainty is that motor scooter rideshare programs in other cities, which not so coincidentally BIRD is the dominant provider (and also LIME), has been bared witness to a influx of their customers going to the hospitals with head injuries, bone fractures and skin abrasions. A lot of these people get a first impression of how they look so much like toys that they forget what going 15 mph feels like. It’s fine on a regular bike when you pedal and gather momentum and maintain balance, it’s another thing and a big risk when you step on a skinny board and press the button and it speeds off and you land on your ass.

Like most motorcycle riders, the ones who get adjusted and are already skilled at operating motor scooters and own their own ride like dicks; cutting off pedestrians, running lights, swerving in front of cars (especially while they are turning) and even side swiping and cutting off regular bike riders.

But these fucking cunts are nothing compared to the number one and most ignored and unacknowledged scourge by our council members, the motorized skateboard. These things have been around for about 2 to 3 years. (I might have saw the prototype of this while riding up the Williamsburg Bridge on morning when some asshole whizzed by me thisclose as he passed). These manchild toys can go up to 25 mph and maybe a little more, having witnessed one douche snake through steady traffic and beating them to an intersection and making the next one by himself. They also get pretty obnoxious with the liberty they have because of the enhanced speed of their toys, which is akin to when Hummers were ruling the roads and monopolizing the lanes. Some of these skater pissants are so overconfident they are texting and drinking coffee while riding on them (see above). Habits that will usually get you pulled over by cops if you are driving your car or truck. Yet I have never seen any of these users pulled over once or even a ticket sweep stopping them, considering they are technically going over the required speed limit at times. And why not? Because the majority of these passive arrogant commuters are young upwardly motor boosted mobile predominantly vanilla hipsters. It’s preposterous that motor(ed bi)cycle food delivery riders got pulled over from time to time, while the NYPD and the Mayor let these skater cretins get away without even a verbal warning or even a cheesy PSA poster stressing taking safety precautions

There will be some who will read this and observe sour grapes and old fogey griping, because in this greedy and selfish culture, this generation of kidults loves to malign what they call “haters” who hate their asinine habits and reinforces ageism against those who are older that criticize their naked aggressive haughtiness. But it is preposterously unfair that these dicks are buzzing around the city (and cities) with these motored boards going the same speed limit as cars while they are not even properly secured by anything. Like say a car’s exterior, seat belts or even handlebars to balance and steer on. The same thing with these stupid uniwheels, whose users are just as reckless, arrogant and obtuse.

And while the city council promote this bill, they still have not acknowledged these motor skateboards at all. In fact it is not even known if these boards are even mentioned in the city or state regarding vehicle regulations. I surmise even tricycles, big wheels and radio flyer wagons have actual regulations for their usage.

Well, with this law about to be written up,  the wishy washy weak ass Mayor de Blasio will support it once it’s expedient. And it can’t be anymore expedient thanks to perpetual leniency towards the use of these motored cycles and scooters for the past few years and continues to this day. And now these fucking motorized skateboards will surely and sneakily sidle in to be included, kinda like how their impatient users take advantage of space to get through no matter how narrow.

But it has to be done because it’s become a part of society now. And all mass transportation is at an apocalyptic state. Mostly it’s for the sake to get people moving no matter what the cost. And these scooters will cost a lot, it takes a buck to turn on and adds fees for every other minute, it will probably be cheaper and safer to take a dollar van. And there is lots of investor lucre invested in this scooter shit, as well as the food app industry and these lame motored skateboards, for all this money is the main motivator behind this bill for supposed transportation alleviations and alternatives. And no matter who gets hurt, because if more people are using these for the assumption that it will get more cars off the road, well, these smaller devices and their drivers will cause the next bunch of injuries as well as to themselves. And that includes these boosted skateboarders, where one brand is now the subject of a class action lawsuit in Cali and here in Your City. 

Let’s be careful out there, mostly to all us motorless primitives. And for all these further emboldened road violaters, share the road and slow down jerks.