Why Do People Keep Taking Electric Scooters On Highways?

It's OK to not do what your GPS says, guys.

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Janaki Jitchotvisut

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Aug 21, 2019 at 10:17am ET

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In today’s “people doing dumb stuff on electric scooters” news, three people riding Lime electric scooters got pulled over and cited on I-94 in Milwaukee yesterday. The reason: Riding their scooters on the freeway, which the Wisconsin DOT caught on its traffic cams. Were they stunting? Did they have a death wish? Maybe it was something else entirely?

As local news station WISN reported, the trio were on their way to the Harley-Davidson Museum—or so they thought. They were visiting from Texas, and were unfamiliar with the area, but thought that renting some electric scooters to see the sights seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, they also thought that blindly following where their GPS led them was a smart move, as well.

That’s the reason they reportedly gave police: Their GPS led them onto the highway, so they followed it up the on-ramp before realizing that they’d made a terrible mistake. Shortly after that realization, they crossed three lanes of traffic in the middle of the afternoon to get onto some nearby grass and get out of the road. That's where some Milwaukee County Sheriff deputies caught up with them.

The deputies escorted the trio off the highway before issuing citations to each for operating a moped on a freeway where prohibited. The cost: $204 per person. The video of this idiocy will, of course, live forever.

Incidentally, even if the trio had been riding on highway-appropriate scooters, their GPS was still leading them away from the museum rather than toward it, according to WISN. GPS misdirections certainly aren’t uncommon—but why the three either ignored or else didn’t see the signs that every highway has warning that certain vehicle types are prohibited isn’t clear.

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Additionally, why common sense appears to be even less common in rental electric scooter riders than in the general population remains a mystery for the ages. No one got hurt this time, but it probably won’t be long before someone does.

Sources: WISN, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel