Two very small,electrically poweredwheels are dividingopinion on both sidesof the Channel...‘C’est degueulasse!’
Stuart McGurk is
AGAINST le scooterPhotographsTerry O’Neill/Getty Images; Getty Images; Jamil GSLet’s be clear about some-
thing: no human, since we
left the trees, has looked
anything but ridiculous by
moving horizontally while standing
stationary. Here’s the complete list of
them: Segway riders, Airwheel riders,
“hoverboard” (ie, two-wheel) riders and
Hannibal Lecter when they wheeled
him from high security to meet the
senator. (Although, let’s be honest,
the latter does make a killer Halloween
costume if you have too much time on
your hands.)
To that we can now add the
riders of electric scooters
or, specifically, the ones
the fashion mafia zoom
around on during Paris
Fashion Week. Leaving aside
that they’re illegal to use on
UK roads – they may as well be
smoking a crack pipe – what’s
worse is how, for scooter riders,
whatever their location, any
surface is their surface. The electric
scooter rider sees the city much as
a toddler does when pushing a
toy car over a surface in which
the roads are painted on.
Nwwwwwwrrrr! Over a cross-
ing, down a pavement, through
a main road, across the back
of a pensioner that another
scooter has just knocked
over – wheeeee!
I swear, I once saw someone
on an electric scooter veer
diagonally from a pave-
ment, across a road, onto
the other pavement, into
a shop and stay on
his scooter the whole
time. “Mate!” I
wanted to shout,
“They’re not
hovershoes!
At least when
cycling you have
the small hope
it’s the bike that’ll take
the brunt if a car decides to career
into your path, leaving you deposited
on the bonnet. With a scooter? Good
luck: the traffic is essentially playing
a game of meat-bag whack-a-mole
with the suckers. Still, silver lining
and all that.First off, let’s get one
thing straight: there’s a
big difference between
micro-scooters and elec-
tric scooters. Everything about
micro-scooters – from their foldability
and the fact that they’re foot-powered
to those stupidly tiny wheels – makes
them ridiculous. And that’s before you
get to the fact that micro-scooters, once
the preserve of Nineties toddlers and
noughties tweens, have more recently
been adopted by a certain facet of the
adult population. I mean, no crowded
Tube carriage can be that bad...
The nippy little electric scooters that
have recently taken over the streets
of Paris, on the other hand, are, in my
opinion, the diametric opposites to
their micro cousins. Nippy, economical
and surprisingly chic, Paris’ new scoot-
ers are to the French capital’s transport
infrastructure what micro-scooters are
not to anyone’s social standing.
On a recent work trip to the French
capital I decided to give up on my
car and driver in favour of short,
whizzy trips on these rent-by-the-
minute scooters, which can be found
on any street corner from the Marais
to the Trocadéro and picked up and
dropped down at leisure. Weaving
through traffic at a cool 12mph
(speeds have been capped follow-
ing a number of accidents), I felt like
Marty McFly on his hoverboard, only
cooler (and perhaps slightly less pro-
tected from angry French drivers),
free from societal constraints and open
to anything – Serge Gainsbourg on a
scooter, if you will.
There are currently
20,000 scooters in Paris and
though there are issues –
inconsiderate parking,
pavement mounting,
reckless scooting – the
overriding benefits for not
only individuals but for
the city as a whole are man-
ifold. From the positive impact
on the environment (fewer fossil
fuel-guzzling vehicles on le roads will
never be a bad thing) to the fact that
less cars means fewer traffic acci-
dents, in my opinion the fact that we
don’t have more of them in London is
ridicule indeed.‘C’est incroyable!’
Teo van den Broeke is
FOR le scooteri09-19HRGOLF.indd 104 11/07/2019 13:07
100 GQ.CO.UK SEPTEMBER 2019