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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Am I being unreasonable to suggest that scooters should be banned on pavements?

277 replies

Morgause · 07/09/2013 14:36

An hour ago I went up the lane to pay the papers. The pavement isn't particularly wide but not very narrow either. A little girl aged 3 -4 scooted past me quite quickly which made me jump a bit as I hadn't heard her coming. I looked round to see her mother with a buggy quite a way back down the lane. She shouted the little girl's name and told her to wait.

I walked past her and into the shop round the corner and paid the bill. As I came back around the corner the mother had caught up with the little girl and she had begun to scoot on again. Unfortunately she scooted straight into an elderly lady just leaving her gate and they both went flying. I called an ambulance and other neighbours came out to see what could be done to help. It looks like the little girl has broken her arm and the old lady may have broken her hip or her leg - maybe both.

The ambulance man said that scooters are a "bloody nuisance" and if kids aren't falling off them they are ploughing into people on them. He thinks they should be banned anywhere but gardens and parks. The local bobby, also present, agreed.

I think the same after what I saw today. M (the old lady) is the sole carer for her elderly husband who is very disabled following a stroke. Goodness knows what will happen to him now. A neighbour is with him for now and is hoping to contact someone from social services for some emergency care.

OP posts:
Morgause · 10/09/2013 13:46

MrTumbles if the child has been moving more slowly M would have seen her as she got to her gate. The child was scooting close to the 3ft fence and totally unseen until she ploughed into M as she stepped out of her gate. I saw it happen.

Anyway M's operation is over and it went well as well as it could, which is good news. GP has been wonderful and is arranging carers to come in to A in the short term but says it can't be a permanent solution. Neighbours are helping out as well.

Son has spoken to a lawyer on the phone and has been told he has a good case, given the number of witnesses, and is going in later in the week.

The father of the tot was telling a different story but has been put right.

OP posts:
MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:08

Still dubious that stepping out and then looking means you can 100% blame the parent of the child on the scooter, esp as she was only few feet behind. However obviously I wasn't there. People jumping on the thread shouting "blame the mother! Irresponsible" do seem to be enjoying their righteous indignation and shouting "no respect for the elderly" to anyone who says anything else, whilst overlooking that as well as a responsibility to use pavements responsibly and ensure our children do so, we also all have the responsibility to look where we are going, even when walking out of a drive way...

Anyway I am glad to hear things are going reasonably well for the injured lady.

I do feel for the mother too, who after all was doing nothing so terrible in being 5 ft from her child, and certainly nothing out of the ordinary, but is now having her husband "put right" by a judgemental community of neighbours. Who knows what they have going on in their lives as they are being judged very harshly by the sound of it for a very unfortunate accident - but an accident, none the less.

Sirzy · 10/09/2013 14:13

Mr tumble - what else do you think she should have done? She looked as well as her view at the time allowed her to. You can't see a short child through a fence.

Sirzy · 10/09/2013 14:13

Mr tumble - what else do you think she should have done? She looked as well as her view at the time allowed her to. You can't see a short child through a fence.

Morgause · 10/09/2013 14:14

If the husband was telling outright lies then those who knew the truth were going to say as much. My sympathy bucket for the parents emptied as soon as I heard what he was saying.

I'll say it again she didn't get chance to look. The fence is higher than the child, she put one foot a few inches onto the pavement and was knocked off her feet by an out-of control child scooting far too fast. If the child had been walking she'd have seen him in plenty of time.

Please don't blame the victim.

OP posts:
MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:15

I thought the child was a girl? Did you really see the accident?

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:16

Don't blame the victim is inappropriate - we aren't talking about rape, but a traffic accident - the person hurt is not automatically blameless.

Sirzy · 10/09/2013 14:18

So what should she have done differently MrTumble? knock down the fence so she could see? Shout "is anyone coming" every time she leaves her house?

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:20

Sirzy stop and look around the gate, if she chooses to have a design of fence and gate that prevents her from seeing the kind of pavement user that is common outside her house, especially at a time of day when she must know the pavement is used by children on scooters, unless she has only just moved in.

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:20

Sirzy stop and look around the gate, if she chooses to have a design of fence and gate that prevents her from seeing the kind of pavement user that is common outside her house, especially at a time of day when she must know the pavement is used by children on scooters, unless she has only just moved in.

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:20

Sirzy stop and look around the gate, if she chooses to have a design of fence and gate that prevents her from seeing the kind of pavement user that is common outside her house, especially at a time of day when she must know the pavement is used by children on scooters, unless she has only just moved in.

Sirzy · 10/09/2013 14:22

So her house should be designed in such a way to accomodate for children who are being unsupervised?

She did stop to look as soon as she could but she could only see clearly by stepping forward.

Simple matter is if the parent had kept her child next to her the accident could have been avoided.

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:23

BTW I am not saying the parent is blameless or even that she is not mostly to blame, just that this thread is hugely judgemental and seems to be assuming that because the consequences may be/ are worse for one party, that party is utterly without fault. It does not sound 100% clear cut to me, and the arm chair judge and jury on here all clawing to cast the first stone at this mother were no more there than I was...

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:28

Sirzy I have a hedge around my garden and a 3 ft gate at the end of the drive, and there are lots of children )on bikes not scooters generally, including 2 year olds on balance bikes) who use the pavement outside to get to the playground beside our house - so I look before I step out. If you have a fencing design that stops you seeing you could take care to look.

The older lady did something perfectly normal in stepping out, and it is not her fault there was a scooter coming, 99 times out of 100 she would have been fine, but she could have looked - just as 99 times out of 100 no harm would come of being 5 ft from a child on a scooter (which doesn't mean the mother shouldn't have been right next to her child if the pavement is busy).

It was a very unfortunate accident, the need to lay blame is probably going to increase bad feeling and spread the pain, no more.

Morgause · 10/09/2013 14:48

Of course I saw it, I phoned the ambulance. I mis-typed because I was in a hurry. I don't know where "him" came from, maybe the husband was on my mind. I'm still fuming with him.

So you're only a victim if you're raped? Interesting thought, that, and not one I agree with. And neither would a dictionary.

OP posts:
MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 14:58

Morgause of course you aren't only a victim if you are raped, but the victim blaming terminology is inappropriate to this kind of accident, where two vulnerable parties were involved and parties on both sides were injured, and there was no malice or intention to harm on either side - both "sides" were victims to some extent. Don't blame the victim" is a tautology in this case - by refering to her as the victim you are saying she cannot be even partly to blame for what happened, but she is "the victim" by your definition - she is not "the victim" of anybody's deliberate actions to hurt her, surely she is more accurately "a victim" of an accident - an accident victim, just as the small child is.

Xiaoxiong · 10/09/2013 15:05

I think MrTumble is referring to the concept of contributory negligence - the law is allowed to take into account that the person harmed in an accident can contribute to the cause and/or severity of their injuries. So just because you were the one injured doesn't mean you didn't contribute towards your own injuries. The word "victim" does imply no contribution on the part of the person injured towards the existence and/or extent of their injuries. There is no equivalent contribution towards a crime eg. rape (this is why you can't argue that a woman was drunk and wearing a short skirt and therefore contributed to her own injuries).

I have a giant pregnancy bump and SPD so no ability to leap out of the way at the moment, and a kid scooted round a corner right into the bump as I was standing still, unlocking my front door. We live on a high street with pavements just wide enough for a single buggy (so if two buggies need to pass each other one has to go into the road) and yet people still allow their kids to scoot along the pavement. We can look for people coming when we step out of the door but the scooters come so fast round the corner you can look, see a clear pavement and step out the door and get crashed into. It drives me absolutely crazy and an apology somehow never appears from kids or parents.

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 10/09/2013 15:16

Thanks Xiaoxiong I didn't know the legal term, just the logical one! :) That is exactly what I am getting at!

I am absolutely not trying to "blame" the lady who got hurt, just trying to indicate that her actions may also have played some part in what happened, which is relevant if people are insisting "blame" has to be dolled out; it is not automatically the scooting child and her carer who are 100% to blame and need to be hounded for blood money and driven out of town Hmm

I hope people stop bumping into your bump! If you are standing still at your door when you are bumped into then I would guess it is somewhat more clear cut than if you are stepping out...

Its all the "suing" and "putting right" that made me want to add the point about contributory negligence (adding term to vocabulary) not a wish to criticise the old lady herself...

BranchingOut · 10/09/2013 15:52

As always, I think that the key lies in being careful/considerate of others and not assuming that others will look out for your child. It is just like all sorts of other situations - I remember being in a cafe and seeing a one year old toddling around 'free range' (mother relaxed, coffee, chatting, not really looking in her direction) then the mother being horrified when she pulled on the back of a loaded buggy and it toppled on top of her. The little girl was fine, but the point is the mother had been relying on the closed door and the vigilance of other customers, rather than keeping a close eye on her herself.

I have a just-turned four year old who scoots, but I tend to jog along beside him on the quiet pavements (few other pedestrians), always keep an eye out for others and slow right down/pull him along in busier spots. I can see that I would find this nigh-on-impossible to do if I also had a pram to push.

However, I have just moved close to a small town/large village on the basis that we could walk or scoot around and I have already noticed that the nursery drop-off is 4 x 4 madness - so should i continue to walk/scoot or would some of the people on this thread have me joining them?

On the subject of relative dangers, I was walking home today (by myself, on the pavement) and a car clipped the kerb at 20 -30 mph, right in front of me - the wheel made a horrible noise, but it stayed on the road. If it had mounted the pavement, that would have been me killed or seriously injured, in the blink of an eye....Much more potential for injury than a child on a scooter.

BranchingOut · 10/09/2013 15:54

When I say 'look out for your child', I mean in both senses of the word - the parent has to be vigilant about what might happen to the child and what the child might cause to happen to other people.

candycoatedwaterdrops · 10/09/2013 19:45

MrTumbles When I said small people it's because I assumed that most people on scooters are children, so please don't patronise me with discussions of people with dwarfism. Also, I wouldn't expect a person to be running on a busy path and even if they did, they are able to stop dead - unlike a small child on wheels. I don't have a problem with children on bikes or scooters at a decent pace. I think the fact that you partially blame the lady in question says an awful lot about you and not in a good way. If she'd tripped over a child sauntering along, of course she'd have some culpability in her own accident but a child should not be scooting at speed on a pavement unless they have the ability to note people around them and stop instantly. The child was young, not her fault of course, the parent was at fault 100 percent.

MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 11/09/2013 05:58

candycoated "I think the fact that you partially blame the lady in question says an awful lot about you and not in a good way."

Exactly what is that poisonous little titbit supposed to mean? "says an awful lot about you and not in a good way".

The fact I have questioned the eager clamouring to blame the mother exclusively and the baying for her to "pay" in one way or another, and suggested that although (as I keep saying) the accident is awful for the lady concerned, the fact she is suffering does not automatically mean the mother of the scooting child should be vilified to the extent she has been.

The accident was between an adult who could have looked more carefully and therefore avoided being injured (and breaking the child's wrist) and a very small child who could have been walking but as it happens was scooting was a mere 5ft from her mother (if circumstances hadn't conspired the way they had to produce an accident 5 ft from her mother would not normally constitute dangerously out of control...).

It was an accident as far as what we can read on here can be made out - some people are taking a great deal of pleasure in their righteous indignation at the terrible mother who allowed her toddler to scoot 5ft ahead, and I can only assume none of these people have ever done anything that could have, but perhaps didn't, result in an avoidable accident.

If a young healthy adult had stepped out of their drive and collided with the child, and broken the child's wrist but the said adult had been been uninjured, I wonder if people would still be as unified in baying for the child's mother's blood? It is the same accident, with different participants, and I imagine there would have been a lot more sympathy for the mother and child.

The lasts posts by the OP sounds as if the family of the little girl (who are new to the area and "outsiders") are being roundly "ganged up on" by community who are really rather enjoying "putting them right" and making them feel their wrath. The fact is what the mother was allowing was nothing that thousands of others don't allow, and nothing that would attract much in the way of criticism, if circumstances hadn't conspired to result in an accident.

The clear relish with which some on MN are playing judge and jury and apportioning blame "100%" upon a mother of an injured child for doing something not unusual or terrible, and something the broad equivalent of which they are very likely to have done themselves (in terms of being a tiny bit lax when in a hurry and under stress and allowing something that might, in retrospect, not have been the safest choice) also says something about them "and not in a good way" to use that snide and judgemental little phrase.

FeliciaDoolittle · 11/09/2013 07:16

Scooters are quite noisy things, aren't they? I wonder if the old lady just wasn't paying attention to anything, as most of us do as we walk out our gardens.

You simply cannot put the blame for this accident 100% on the shoulders of a mother who was 5ft away from her scooting child. 5ft. That's less distance than my height! A bit of perspective, please. The child was hardly out of control.

All the talk of suing makes me sad. Do we really want to live in a country where that happens? I know I don't. I absolutely detest this blame culture.

That poor child has broken her wrist. The poor mother must feel awful and no matter what the father has said, there is really no need for the community to round on them when they are vulnerable.

I hope you feel good about putting them in their place. I can only imagine you would welcome the extra stress if it was your child who was injured.

Of course, I have sympathy for the old lady and the situation her and her husband are now in. But it was an accident. They happen.

RustyBear · 11/09/2013 07:33

Don't you think that the old lady might have been deaf, rather than 'not paying attention' Felicia?

FeliciaDoolittle · 11/09/2013 07:44

It's a possibility, yes. I just wondered why it hadn't been mentioned before.

As is the fact that she could have been doing what every single one of us does on a daily basis. Not be 100% in the moment all the time.