Hell on wheels

How many of the people driving mobility scooters these days actually need a mobility scooter? The invention of the vehicle was a great move forward (literally) for those who genuinely needed it: the disabled and the infirm. But then another group of users appeared. Rather slowly, admittedly, and wheezing as they did so, before settling their vast backsides into the soothing embrace of the scooter’s seat. Once there they sighed happily, popped another Kit Kat into their gob and contemplated a life where movement from A to B required a mere flick of the wrist, rather than all that tedious leg business.

This supersized scooter squadron has conquered Britain with an ease that the Romans in their chariots could only have dreamed of. I passed a pub in Llanelli recently which offered a ‘Mobility Parking Valet Service’. The Speccie’s Marcus Berkmann relates a visit to Ramsgate where he witnessed so many people driving mobility scooters that ‘some of them must have been injured by people driving mobility scooters’.