How San Francisco Fought Back Against The Scooter Scourge
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — At first, the scooters appeared in a trickle — and then, a swarm.
The scooters were initially heralded as a revolution in personal transportation. Any techie with a smartphone and a credit card could activate a scooter and zip around the city at a blistering 15 mph.
However, the initial optimism soon turned into horror. Upstanding citizens were terrorized by scooter riders who ran into grandmas on the sidewalks, left their scooters in the middle of walkways, and inconvenienced bikers in the bike lane. San Franciscans watched as their city quickly degraded into a post-apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by marauding scooter gangs.
At first, a ragtag group began to fight back against the scooter scourge. Local vigilantes valiantly threw scooters into the bay and defecated on them in order to render them inaccessible. A coalition of ride-sharing and self-driving car companies lobbied for a ban, fearful that scooters would disrupt their business model of transporting people with cars. Mayoral candidates began to declare their positions on scooters. Even the city’s homeless denizens contributed to the resistance by scattering needles across sidewalks to form makeshift tire traps.
It wasn’t long until scooters drew the attention of Bill Pozen, director of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. “When I heard about the ‘scooter problem,’ I knew we had to take action,” he said in a press conference with reporters. “Compared to crime, soaring housing prices, and rampant homelessness, scooters are clearly the most pressing problem facing San Francisco today.
“It’s difficult, but we are prepared to fight these hordes of helmetless yuppies and preserve the local character of this city.”
San Francisco quickly issued a temporary ban on scooters, sending their yuppie riders back into the Ubers and Lyfts where they belong. However, the battle is far from over: the ban is set to expire in a week, and the scooter companies will be able to apply for permits to operate in San Francisco. In the meantime, the scrappy natives of San Francisco are sharpening their needles and readying their protest signs to prepare for the inevitable return of Big Scooter.
Halting Problem reached out to the leading scooter companies for comment, and while Bird and LimeBike had not responded as of press time, an anonymous Spin representative we reached on the phone said, “What? They’re smearing poop on them now? Jesus fucking christ, bro! I don’t get why people are so pissed off, they’re just scooters…”
