I see them all over midtown. The apartment building on Linwood and Paseo, sitting out front of the place like geriatric hells angels, 3, 4, or 5 deep, smoking and waiting for who knows what or whom. They rarely have any kind of markers, no flags on a tall stick, or lights to draw attention. Now the news reports a woman was struck by a hit and run driver while trying to cross 63rd and woodland, at 10 PM, on her Rascal scooter. I don't want to sound to harsh here, but attempting to cross a major road like 63rd, in the dark, on a vehicle smaller than a riding lawnmower, at the blistering speed of 4 miles an hour, isn't exactly a wise thing to do. In fact being out after dark on one of these things, trying to meld in to traffic is pretty much asking for trouble.
Nobody wants to be the person who points out the idiocy of the people who think a Rascal scooter is just a scaled down car, and then proceed to operate the damn thing on city streets at the speed and height of a land tortoise, so I guess that's my cue. It's bad enough that we have to avoid being run over at the local grocery store or walmart by some rotund woman in pink stretch pants hogging up the middle of the isle, now we have to worry they will dart out in traffic.
Plan and simple, if you are running around on one of these things after dark, you are begging to become road kill. I'm sorry for the woman and her family, and I hope the cops catch whoever hit her and left her for dead in the middle of the road, that said, had she exercised a smidgen of common sense she would still be free to crash in to my ankles at the local Walgreen's, and slow up traffic on 63rd street during daylight hours.
Update: I may have misstated what the woman was operating, it may have been a wheelchair, I'm certain channel 4 or 5 reported it was a rascal. Either way, the sentiment is the same. In the words of the late Roger Miller "You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd".
I think any female out at 10 PM in that area is begging to become roadkill, even if she has full use of all her limbs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Donna. And not just the female part. Anyone out at that time in that area in the road is asking to get whacked. What really bothers me about those "mobility" scooters is the people who use them who are not really disabled, but merely too fat or too lazy or both. I've seen people drive those things down the street or through the local store and then get off and walk normally into their house. We are enabling the fat and lazy people to a point where soon we will all be helpless and unable to move at all. Scary.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they'll qualify for Obama's stimulus plan? Hey, electric golf carts do. There may be more on the road...look out... lol
ReplyDeleteWas she wearing a helmet?
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that this is where our society has descended to, fat lazy people on scooters.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong. If an elderly person with a walking impediment needs one, that's fine. But I've seen more non-elderly, extremely obese individuals on them, than bonafide AARP members. Our society is slowing descending to the level of the fat, helpless, lumps depicted in the movie WALL-E. What's even sadder is when these morbidly obese individuals try to claim that the result of their poor dietary and exercise habits is a disability. Sure there may be some rare glandular disorder causing a some weight issues, but I guarantee the biggest cause for most of these lumps with an attitude is one too many Big Macs.
Finally, I have to agree with all the other posters. What the heck is some person, any person, doing out at 10 pm at 63rd and Woodland in a wheelchair or scooter? That's just plain dangerously dumb.
Wow, this story isn't funny, but that picture definitely is.
ReplyDeleteI see people on Rascals even in the fine city of Leawood, truckin it on the streets with no helmet and no reflective gear.
Dumb.
And yes, 98% of the time it's an obese denise.
People on those rascals bug the heck out of me. I understand elderly people who need extra help getting around, but I have seen people younger than me (I'm 42) on them. Being fat is no excuse. I'm fat and I can still walk. I suspect that if I were lazy enough to use a rascal then I would quickly get too fat and too weak to walk. How do most of them afford the things anyway?
ReplyDeletewall-e!
ReplyDeleteActually medicare/medicade will pay for one of these bad mama jamma's.
ReplyDeleteso the state pays for fat people to be lazy while we earn about $200 too much a year to get state insurance for our kids. That sucks big time.
ReplyDeleteI travel 63rd everyday on my way from brookside to 71. Almost every day I see people meandering on 63rd st on a wheelchair. I usually have to change lanes to get around them. I don't know why they can't use the sidewalk. I'm surprised this hasn't happened before.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the fat people at the grocery store riding one of those.
ReplyDeleteI actually had one of them ask me to get something down from a shelf that they couldn't reach. Lazy Bastard.
A co-worker of mine almost died about 6 weeks ago. She had septicemia and full organ shutdown. If not for modern medicine she would have died. She came pretty close. I'm amazed at how quickly she has recovered and gotten off dialysis. When she comes back to work she will be riding one of those things because her brain is back 100 percent and she is needed on the job, but physically she is still very fatigued. So you might see her riding one of those things and think she is just lazy. But that's not the case. The Rascal will be only temporary as she continues to recuperate. So, please don't think every person you see on a Rascal, even if overweight, is just depending on disability payments and being lazy. They might be recuperating from a major illness that came close to killing them. I know a 32-year-old, fit, handsome hunk who got meningitis last year and also came this close to dying. During his recovery he could hardly move a muscle but in about 8 months he was back handsomer and smarter than ever. I am not sure if he rode one of those things during his recuperation. But again, please don't assume everyone riding one of those things is being lazy. They might be doing everything they can to be independent and not be a burden on society or their relatives.
ReplyDeleteI don't have anything against people who need them using them. it's a tool that can help in living independently. I know a couple of people who honestly need them. I do dislike people who get too fat to move on their own power and use their rascals to get to the store to buy more junk food. I also dislike the people who have run into me with the darn scooters.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth I also dislike the smokers who turn off their Medicaid funded oxygen tanks to have a cigarette.
while some anyone can misjudge someone's necessity to ride a rascal, people who don't need it are like the ones who park in handicapped parking without a reason.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with anyone that rides a wheelchair or a rascal but stay out of the f'ing road!
ReplyDelete