E-scooters are a disaster for cities – but we must embrace them

Electric scooters are a nightmare. Rented by the minute, they clog up pavements and are an ungainly eyesore, but we still need them, says Donna Lu

By Donna Lu

BACK in Brisbane, Australia, for the Christmas break, I found myself in a public transport dead zone. Bikeless, 7 kilometres from where I was meeting friends and unwilling to get a taxi, I resorted to borrowing an electric scooter.

“You’ll have such a good scoot!” a friend told me before I left, as if such a thing were possible while zooming around with the ungainliness of an overgrown child. The trip took far longer than it would have by bike, not least because of a major spill halfway there. A stray rock, hit at speed, is a terrible thing: weeks later, I still had the scabbed-up knees of a primary schooler. …