In early April, 250 bright orange scooters-for-rent mysteriously appeared, littering the university campus and its vicinity.
San Francisco based electric scooter company Spin has partnered with LSU’s Parking and Transportation Service, Student Government and the Office of Research and Development to provide short to medium distance transportation while contributing to a “micromobility” research project, according to an LSU media center release.
Users can pay $1 to unlock a Spin scooter and $0.30 per minute of riding; scooters have a max speed of 15 miles per hour but have pre-programed “slow ride zones” and “no ride zones.”
Here’s some opinions from The Reveille’s opinion section:
We all saw the athletes on their scooters and wished we had them, too. Now we do but it comes at a cost – literally.
They’re great in theory, but so far, I don’t understand why we have them. They are parked all over campus, in the most random places. They’re bright orange so they look like moving traffic cones. How do they recharge? Who is liable if someone gets injured by them? So many unanswered questions.
They just appeared all over campus overnight. The athletes get their scooters for free, right? Why do the “common-folk” students have to pay to use them?
Lauren Madden | @lllomadd
The older I get, the more I think “Wall-E” had the future right. The future isn’t in humanity; it’s in manufactured laziness.
Piled everywhere across campus, along streets and sidewalks, are those damn orange scooters. They litter the streets, transforming transportation into pedestrian hazards.
If you’re late for class, try running – using your feet is surely better for your heart than idly standing on those zippy bi-wheeled eyesores every LSU athlete seems to own.
If I was dictator of LSU for the day, my first executive order would be to prohibit those pussyfooting modes of transportation and make it legal for everyone to clothesline their riders from their footed mounts.
Benjamin Haines | @bphaines
“Can you hear that? Is it a lawnmower? A chainsaw?” No! It’s a bright orange scooter zooming right towards you! Watch out!
Many question whether these scooters should have a safety hazard, not so much for those using them but for those around them. Although you can distinctly hear it coming up behind you, several students wear noise-canceling headphones as they walk across campus and cannot hear it coming.
They are available to everyone, but using these scooters isn’t free. In addition, there is no specific place students have to return the scooters to once they’re done using them, and it’s common to see the bright-orange eye sores scattered around campus.
Isabella Albertini | @BasedIsabella
When looking at a phenomenon like the plague of orange scooters, it is essential to ask one question: why?
Why are people using them? The obvious answer is as a quick and easy means of transportation, but there has to be a better system that doesn’t irritate (and threaten) literally every person not on them.
Personally, I would suggest just walking faster. Of course, the real reason that a lot of people use the scooters is because they think they look cool (they’re wrong). It is a horrifying experience to be on your way back to your dorm from a late-night studying session in the library only to be confronted with a horde of frat boys zooming back and forth on the empty streets.
Matthew Pellittieri | @m_pellittieri
Some people have an issue with athletes getting scooters for free, but I think it makes sense. We should be offering as many incentives as possible for good athletes to come here.
The recent Women’s basketball victory and the 2019 Football championship season were great. Arch Manning went to school in New Orleans and still chose to go to Texas. We should give the athletic department whatever they need to win. Automatic A+ grades, as much money as it’s possible to give to athletes, even Prima Nocta.
If research departments complain about funding, tell them to hang some banners first.
Frank Kidd | @FK446852315
Editor’s note: Frank Kidd misinterpreted the prompt to be about athlete scooters.
A sign informs students to keep scooters away from doorways on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, at the Biological Sciences building on LSU's campus in Baton Rouge, La.
