In the city of Los Angeles, there are a lot of hazards: too much traffic, the occasional earthquake, overeager officers policing the crosswalks for unsuspecting pedestrians who get stuck with a ticket for not knowing the jaywalking rules, dog poop on the sidewalks, and up until now, the biggest annoyance was the presence of homeless people in the alleys and just off the sidewalk, often getting in the way of ordinary citizens trying to get to work. There'd be plenty of times I had to step over a homeless guy lying on top of a heating vent because it got a little too chilly in the winter.
Now, though, a new menace has threatened Los Angeles and many cities throughout America: the presence of scooters. I don't say this just because MJ got into a scooter accident and now we both have a vendetta against scooters, although that certainly doesn't help its cause. It's the fact that when stationary, these steel beasts are just sitting in the sidewalk, taking up space and getting in people's way, and there's usually a bunch of them together, crowding the much-needed space like a conglomeration of Asian tourists except these beasts don't move away after a while; they stay permanently until someone rents them. And when they are on the move, these scooters are driven recklessly by drivers either in the bike lane, where actual bikers are trying to maneuver, or for more ignorant scooter drivers, on the sidewalk, where they are forbidden to be ridden.
During law school, our first semester legal writing class had everyone write a brief about a hypothetical fact pattern, and ours happened to be about an attractive nuisance case about a kid who got hurt biking on top of a sand dune. I didn't know anything about attractive nuisances before law school, but the hypothetical taught me about what constitutes an attractive nuisance, mainly that it makes a landowner liable if the injury is caused by an object on the land that is likely to attract children. The scooter is like an attractive nuisance for adults.......it's just sitting there tempting adults to get on it and go somewhere quicker.........not mentioning that it's very dangerous, it can cause more accidents, it doesn't tell you to wear a helmet.......pretty unsafe and pretty nuisance-like, if you ask me. I propose that the city of LA and other cities (I've seen people riding scooters in NYC, too, which is much more dangerous especially on the sidewalk with a much heavier density of pedestrians) reject the new business they get from allowing scooters on their streets and relegate them to the suburbs or safer areas.
Today after talking to a co-worker I also made the revelation why I struggled to get better at playing the violin: I didn't like playing music by myself. It's a social activity: playing music with friends and creating music together is much more fun than trying to creak out something on my violin in my own room or basement, or on the piano. I was much more willing to sit through 2 hours of orchestra and band practice because we actually played the music together and I could have a sense of belonging, not just forcing myself to go through the motions of getting through an hour of violin practice at home. It just didn't agree me, and I finally made that realization half a lifetime later as my co-worker who plays drums described how every week he looks forward to meeting with his band. Of course he does! I would too if it was with my friends and we were doing fun things together! Like playing dodgeball, I don't really even like dodgeball that much throwing a ball against a wall by myself, but in a room full of sweaty bodies who are doing the same thing, I love it. - Note to remember for if and when we have kids.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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