Weekly Roundup 29-September-2023

Re ” Any new device that carries a significant level of safety-risk will receive far more scrutiny and potential regulation because we will not turn a blind-eye to it as we largely do with motor vehicle safety-risk.”
Yes; that has also been the case with mobility scooters. Even NZ public transport authorities are refusing services to people who use these devices to get around. There are many overlooked serious issues involved here. see- https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/09/06/woman-baffled-why-she-cant-get-mobility-scooter-on-buses/
When I started on my “mobility” journey, I discovered that many people who have mild to moderate mobility difficulties have used cycle technology to get around for decades. This has happened, mostly ‘under the radar’ in NZ public spaces, and those doing so have have often been mistaken for attempting to be athletes, and therefore consideration about any difficulties they may be meeting using these devices often means that they are considered ‘less deserving’ of personal respect by all varieties of NZ’s ‘entitled’ class.
NZ is among other Western countries, that follow a prevailing attitude from the “sports and toy” industrial complex, who get over-invested in their passionate belief that their products being associated with “unwellness and disability” is distasteful; and will ‘hurt their sales pitch; preferring to restrict the marketing of their products to the ‘ultra-healthy’ people market.
Due to their mental insecurity, these people also have a tendency to ‘look down on’ other less ‘confident’ cyclists and try to ‘take over’ shared pathways and footpaths by behaving poorly, speeding on our shared pathways, and engaging in other activities which makes them dangerous spaces for other users.
While these people do not form a majority of NZers, they have a disproportionate share of the public ‘voice’ and turned into a dangerous lobby which seeks to disrupt the introduction of regulation changes to curb their activities, and our regulators, up until now, have allowed them to do this.
When I decided to stop driving, for personal reasons, unrelated to political correctness, I visited the Independent Living center[ILS]. At that time I had a significant conversation about new personal transport technology innovations and how it meant that many people who would have normally been stuck at home or dependent on someone taking them out in a car or pushing them in a [ ‘unpowered’ ]wheelchair were experiencing new found freedom.
One person in particular, a young guy living with profound mobility impairments was able to travel about locally independently using his powered wheelchair. Watching him, you could see the absolute joy and appreciation in his expressions about his new found freedom as he went about his daily business. Without the new technology his life would be very different.
Sadly I also heard about a young person who suffered significant amputation, and chose to use a skateboard to get around. Despite being accompanied by a caregiver, which was required when attending a film screening, they were forced to pay full price because they were using ‘non- standard’ disability equipment.
Normally, people living with disabilities were given a concession price and free entry for their caregiver. Legally, under the circumstances, the proprietor could have refused them entry altogether, if they had argued for their rights.
SO; it may be a conclusion that not only do these people seek to deprive others, who are more vulnerable than themselves, of their rights to get around as best they can, some also never let a chance go by to use fake ‘compassion’ to corrupt the situation in order to take advantage of others’ vulnerability using the protection of poorly conceived and interpreted regulations and social superiority.
I also learned from this discussion that, at that time, ILS staff had grave concerns that often, people using this equipment to meet their [disability] transport needs were being killed and injured by inconsiderate motorists who seemed to regard the footpaths as a “buffer-zone” between their driveway exit and the road, also forcing many into the road by obstructing [parking stuff on] the footpaths. Too many people using the new mobility equipment were being run over, particularly from motorists backing out of driveways without looking first.
Few took responsibility for their actions, and when defending themselves many motorists took the attitude that “they” didn’t see the person they hit and said that “these devices were “dangerous” to use in public spaces.
In response to calls for transport regulation and infrastructure reform, some drivers feel entitled to use the “revenge pass” to make their point. see; https://e2nz.org/2015/01/30/road-rage-drivers-own-video-is-evidence-against-him-hatred-of-cyclists-in-nz/
Although ‘dangerous driving’ is a traffic infringement, drivers are generally, only held accountable if they kill or injure a cyclist or their actions are captured on film, and even then matters are open to dispute.
At a time when this equipment was beginning to be seen in NZ public space, NZers opposing the use of this technology outside of a toy or sports equipment, began to organize ‘ginger groups’ to politically and socially attack the right to use these devices in NZ’s public spaces, even attacking the right of school children to use small unpowered scooters to ride to school. Children were being vilified and banned from shopping malls and school grounds for even carrying one of these devices.
NZ motorists, in part by opposing fair examination and updates to NZ traffic regulation and infrastructure design, have already made it too dangerous for students to bike to school by making NZ’s roads too dangerous to use when cycling, and furthermore have the nerve to use the pretext of upholding the “rights” of pedestrians to be ‘safe’ to prevent authorities reforming the transport regulations to allow these devices to be used on the safer footpath and converting the spaces to ‘shared pathways’.
These people often use their own bad behavior, and incompetence when using these devices to prove their point. They refuse to acknowledge that there are skills to learn in order to safely cycle and use a scooter, just like there are skills involved when driving a car. Much of this is created by irresponsible sales marketing of these products on the part of the toy and sports industry.
In doing so they also trample over the rights of people to make a choice to use the new technologies, even for those people living with disabilities, by presenting arguments that people using these devices to get around are ‘hooligans making bad choices'[yadayadayada] and that “the authorities” should take action to restrict the use of personal mobility devices in public space.
In short these people are demanding the right to exclusive personal right of way on our public infrastructure, and regard any proposals which modernize the construction/ modification of existing transport infrastructure to accommodate any transport device other than motor vehicles for which we all pay for, as a waste of public money and anyone using any other transport technology has no right to be there getting in their way… This would also include opposition to the establishment of light rail and the construction and maintainability of a integrated rail, bus and cycling/ small personal vehicle infrastructure, which could be why these proposals never got passed the ‘consultation’ process before experiencing cost blowouts…and ending up as opposition election fodder.
Unfortunately the people who personally need these reforms the most do not outnumber those who don’t. Also, without update and integrated transport infrastructures in place, the people who don’t need a integrated Public Transport system can attend more public meetings and shout down the voices of those others without access to a motor vehicle who are able to attend in much smaller numbers.
Too many people, mostly those who enjoy so called ‘normal’ mobility, who not only do not appreciate that this can take the form of a ‘privileged’ state; they are a social group of NZers who feel entitled to disregard the benefits this technology can bring to others, and, because they have no desire, or have no personal need to use this equipment in this way, decide to resent the fact that because of these innovations almost everyone can enjoy renewed freedoms, even those who “they” feel should not be allowed to litter the sidewalks and roadways’. It was not so long ago that in ‘western’ cultures people living with impairments, particularly disfiguring ones, were forbidden by law to be seen in public.
I’d like to ask who do these people think they are? And, why are they allowed to dominate public conversations about moving forward with modernizing our transport infrastructures? This has resulted in fruitless wastage on endless consultations and disruptions that its even impacted the results of this election campaign….