Taking advantage of the fact that we are in summer and this columnist has not taken a vacation, we are going to talk about the electric scooter: that devil on wheels that disturbs the roaming serenity of so many neighbors in the tourist towns . It is like that in Malaga, where I live, and I know that it is not the only place that suffers from such - we are Brechtians - resistible ascension. From this, at least, Venice is spared! The people of Madrid will apologize that, after having spent months discussing Central Madrid in each of its details, we go to the provinces today. Serve the story of our predicament, otherwise, as a warning to navigators. Or walkers.

Let's start by clearing up a misunderstanding: err who believes that the issue of electric scooters has something to do with the decarbonisation of transport in the context of global warming. Outside the big capitals, where perhaps this use is dominant although one tends to doubt it, the scooter is almost always a rabid toy in the hands of tourists and young people. Usually, their drivers are dedicated to go from one place to another without respecting any speed limit , often in pedestrian areas where children and the elderly walk, until leaving the pot anywhere obstructing whatever is necessary: ​​that is why worry another. Admittedly, it is a degree problem: ten scooters are an anecdote and two thousand a nightmare. If we add to this the ineffable Segways and the tourist groups by bicycle, the result is the inability to walk without experiencing a mixture of restlessness and disgust. This is followed by a growing animosity of pedestrians towards skateboarders, in addition to numerous minor and some major incidents.

Is it that our Town Halls are not capable of learning? What interests are protected when such an invasion of common space is tolerated? We know that the tourist exploitation of a town has certain limits, past which public problems and visitor aversion emerge. And there are concepts - such as carrying capacity - that allow measuring what a city can support. No one will argue that Spaniards need the charitable force of tourism; few will deny that the public power has the obligation to monitor its excesses. The disorderly proliferation of scooters is one of them: if they disappeared tomorrow, we would win.

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