Is This What We Want or Need? Was This Margaret Morris's and Joe Ferris's Idea?

During last month's informal council meeting, 4th ward member Rich Volo asked Henry Haddad if his SAFETY Committee had taken up the issue of "bicycles, E-bikes and scooters going the wrong way down one-way streets."  Henry replied, "No."  A discussion ensued about the issue of E-riders. (What do you call someone on an E-scooter?  An E-scooterer?)

Margaret Morris began with, "They should not be going the wrong way in the first place."  Off to a great start!  Eventually, Morris made it clear that she wants Haddad to get the Police Department to present some sort of E-bike safety educational program at local schools.  Hoorah!  That ought to go over like a lead zeppelin.  She even mentioned something about a "helmet requirement."   

About a week after that meeting, I noticed the first ever electric scooter rental "station" -- including a handwritten plastic lawn sign -- in downtown Hudson.   Now they seem to be everywhere along our sidewalks, sometimes with a sign and scooters, sometimes with just a lovely sign.  One sign was taped to a traffic sign pole.

No helmet required.  No reason not to ride on 
the sidewalk!  Use any street you like, in any 
and all directions.

I've seen four people using the rental scooters, all of them younger than 20 years old.  Not one of them was wearing a helmet.  Anyone with a credit card -- or anyone with a parent with a credit card -- can get access to these scooters and zip away to roam a small city where there are no rules to worry about.

Hudson is getting uglier by the day!
(City Hall is in the background.)

Can anyone create an E-scooter or E-bike rental system on our sidewalks without consulting the city first?  How many scooter rental companies can set up shop on our sidewalks anywhere they choose and can find space?  Who would you even ask about this?  Margaret Morris?

Below is a picture I recently took of a pair of E-bikers soon after they zipped past me on the sidewalk along State Street.  This type of flagrant dangerous stupidness and code violation concerns me a whole lot more than e-scooterers and e-bikers without helmets headed the wrong way on our one-way streets.  Those people won't be killing or injuring pedestrians.  They might be killing or injuring themselves, but likely not city residents out for a walk.

What, if anything, do you suppose Hudson police officers do when they are behind the wheel of a patrol vehicle and they see an E-rider headed the wrong way on a one-way street?  Chase them down, speeding the wrong way in a multi-ton vehicle to give the rider a warning?  How about a rider without a helmet?  Or a rider on a sidewalk, whether it's an electric device or not?  Nothing happens, regardless of what Margaret Morris says, hopes or tells other people to do.

Words, nothing but empty words.  And it's endless, like a broken record.