I got overtaken by a man on a scooter the other day. I don’t mean a motor-scooter. I mean an electric scooter, the sort you stand up on, with tiny wheels and a battery under the deck. I’m assuming this scooter had been modified, and have a suspicion that before long it would burn its owner’s house down. But in the meantime, it was buzzing along a bike lane at about 35 kph.
Battery technology has unleashed a considerable degree of change on the roads. Once upon a time, and not all that long ago, there were three basic road users. There were pedestrians. There were cyclists. And there were motor vehicles. There were a few in-between categories, like mobility scooters and wheelchair users, but those three were essentially it.
