Actually I have a horn on my EW. Maybe I should start using it when people act as if I’m not there. Thanks for the idea 😁😁
we'd have the common sense you get shown how to use the thing, practice using it, getting between tight spaces etc before being let loose!
(Sorry it’s long….)
So the first thing to say is that it’s likely that no one will tell you how to use the scooter (apart from basic use like folding it etc…)
Even if you go and see a specialist in a mobility centre, my experience is that you are likely to come out with crap advice.
Eg I was told a mobility scooter would fit my needs. It wouldn’t.
To learn to use a scooter, you have to use it. That means putting yourself in the situation the OP describes.
Learning to move around tight places is all well and good but if shop owners don’t allow enough space fir mobility devices, you can be as good as you want, there will be accidents. My experience is that cafes and restaurants are atrocious for that. Just enough place to go through as a walking adult. Certainly not if you are in a wheelchair or scooter.
Last but not least, when I bought my EW, I had the choice if going for either a scooter or an EW. I went fur the EW after being pushed around by DH and dcs and becoming acutely aware of little space shops leave for wheelchairs. In a few shops for example, we ended up having to reverse in a tight passage because there was not enough space to turn with a wheelchair at the end if it.
Despite all the talk for accessibility, a lot if places aren’t and that’s not the fault of scooters or wheelchair users if then it causes problem (such as catching a table, things falling over etc…)
It means I decided to go for the EW because of it’s manoeuvrability vs the scooter (and yes it is true that they are crap for that)
The problem is…..
A scooter costs £500~800, my wheelchair costs £2200.
There us no funding from SS/NHS so people have to self fund. Even people like me who have been given a wheelchair (so need is accepted) and can’t actually move the wheelchair themselves.
Im lucky that I had some savings. DH has a good job. We can afford it. Your 70yo person on a state pension won’t.
If I hadn’t been so privileged, I’d have bought the scooter. With all its manoeuvrability issues. Because I had no choice. It would have been that or being housebound.
All that to say that issue with scooters can not be reduced to ‘people who dint know how to use scooters and are reckless’.
It can be reduced to ‘well if they are so hard to use indoors, they shouldn’t be allowed in shops’
The incident described is a combination of many issues, and about half if which the driver had no control about.
Unless of ourselves you are advocating that people with mobility issues aren’t welcome in shops or cafes unless in a wheelchair - in which case you are also happy to stop many people from accessing those places.