New Jersey’s e-scooter program: Great traveling option? Or a menace to the state?
Posted: Updated:Elizabeth has become the third city in New Jersey to launch an e-scooter sharing program, behind Hoboken and Asbury Park.
Supporters say that the program provides a great way to travel around a town, via electric scooter. They say that this is true in towns that have limited parking and heavy traffic. And help provide an environmentally-cleaner transportation option.
But the program has not been without controversy with reports of accidents, people driving recklessly or even dangerously drunk.
“These scooters are nothing more than a menace. And that's what they've become in only one month of use,” says attorney Thomas DeSeno.
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DeSeno has unofficially been dubbed the “scooter-chasing lawyer” after he posted an ad urging people to call him if they have gotten hurt while riding on one of the scooters.
“The response was immediate. I mean, I got four calls from injured people on the first day. The first call came in within a minute of the ad being released,” he says.
MORE: Follow the rules -- Hoboken e-scooter program begins with a few bumps
There are others who oppose the scooters. A Twitter account named @RudeScooter documents all of the occasions of scooter riders breaking the rules, such as riding on sidewalks, riding doubles or riders under the age of 18.
News 12’s Brian Donohue took one of the scooters out for a spin and said that they were “ridiculously easy” to use. He says that unless the rider was hurt by another driver who is being negligent, the only way to really get hurt on one is operator error.
“Well, you know you can't just rely just on the person to be the best scooter driver,” says DeSeno.
The scooters are available in Asbury Park on a limited basis now that the colder weather has set in. Hoboken officials have recently hired two enforcement officers to crack down on scooter violations.
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