City residents hate e-scooters so much they’re throwing them into rivers

By Michael Grothaus

While hopping on an electric scooter to get from point A to point B is a popular mode of transport in many cities around the country, there also appears to be an increasingly aggressive backlash growing against e-scooters from the likes of Lime, Bird, Uber, and Lyft. Specifically, people have started throwing the scooters into rivers and even burying them in the sand because they’re so sick of seeing them everywhere, reports Forbes.

While some have called it a “scooter war” and others “scooter rage,” the motive is the same: Some residents of cities in which scooters operate are so sick of the vehicles taking up sidewalk space or piling up in parks that they are “returning” the scooters to the bottom of rivers to express their displeasure with them.

As the Oregonian reported, last week the Portland sheriff’s office pulled more than 50 e-scooters and even a few bike-share bikes from the Willamette River. The e-scooters were only discovered in the river after the River Patrol and Dive Team found them during a training exercise.

Those frustrated with e-scooters but who don’t have waterways near them have found other ways to take care of the scooters. As the LA Times reports, locals in Venice Beach, California, have taken to burying the scooters in sand so people can’t find them to rent. That, and smearing them with feces. Matter of fact, retaliation against e-scooters has become so common there’s actually an Instagram account dedicated to people abusing Bird scooters.

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A post shared by Bird Graveyard (@birdgraveyard) on May 12, 2019 at 11:22am PDT

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A post shared by Bird Graveyard (@birdgraveyard) on Jun 22, 2019 at 2:44pm PDT

As for the growing trend of scooter rage, Sgt. Brandon White from the Oregon’s Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office had this to say to the Oregonian: “We advise those people not to park scooters in the river.”

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