I'm not sure which there are more of, Facebook pages, or scooters cruising around the streets of Evansville. I imagine an argument in favor of either could be convincingly made. Regardless, someone decided to bring the two together to form one hilarious page to have a little fun at the expense of our scooter riding residents.

I first discovered the page in my news feed a day before writing this post after a friend had given it a like. Out of curiosity, I gave it a look. What I found was picture after picture of scooter riders submitted by other Facebook users who have liked the page. Most of which show them riding incorrectly in some fashion, or modifying their sweet rides in some manner as shown below.

Scooter Towing a Row Boat
(Facebook)
loading...

For what its worth, I can somewhat empathize (keyword being "somewhat") with those who make their way around town by scooter. Not everyone can afford a car, much less filling it up with gas, so if your options are riding a scooter or walking, then I'd certainly opt for two wheels over two feet regardless of how goofy I may look.

The problem with scooters is how some people ride them with a complete disregard for traffic laws and other drivers on the roadways. For example, during a recent trip home after work, I was driving down Heidelbach toward Diamond Avenue and was stopped by the light at the intersection of Heidelbach and Virginia. As the car in front of me and I waited patiently for the light to turn green, out of nowhere a scooter riding knucklehead zipped past my driver's side, his wheels firmly planed on the double yellow line, passed the car in front of me, barely slowed down enough to look for cross traffic, and proceeded through the intersection. His erratic I-have-to-get-where-I'm-going-and-I-have-to-get-there-now riding continued at the next intersection (Heidelbach and Columbia) as he hopped up on the sidewalk to pass a car waiting at that stoplight, and blew through that intersection.

On a separate occasion a few days later, although again on the ride home from work, I was sitting on Walnut Street waiting for the green arrow so I could make a left on Heidelbach when I saw another scooter rider completely ignore the traffic light. After I got the arrow and proceeded to make my turn, he made a quick look both ways then went ahead and made his turn to head east on Walnut toward Highway 41 even though he clearly had a red light.

While it's not uncommon to see scooter related accidents make their way into the feed of Evansville Watch or as a story on the evening news, I'm amazed there's not more scooter related deaths on a daily basis as people ride these things around town thinking either the rules don't apply to them, or knowing they do and choosing to ignore them if there's not a police officer around to bust them.

It's for that reason that Scooter People of Evansville also looks to educate the public on the laws applied to scooter riders, the latest accidents and traffic advisory's involving scooters, and keeping people up to date on the latest discussions in regards to changing the requirements needed to be able to ride.

Although the page was created on June 8th of this year, it's viral popularity has grown almost as quickly as the number of scooters we see on Evansville area roads. When I first looked at the page (less than 24 hours before writing this), it had 500 likes. As of this sentence, they're up to 3,905 with more jumping on each time I refresh the page.

Next time you're checking your news feed, I suggest you jump over to Scooter People of Evansville, I think you'll "like" what you see (see what I did there? Witty).

More From WDKS-FM