The scooter company dropped two thousand scooters overnight
Across the downtown corridor without the right
Of way discussions with the city that the city required,
The argument being: we’re a transportation solution hired
By the market and the regulation will catch up,
The city pulled three hundred scooters and the cup
Of the public relations battle was framed as innovation
Versus bureaucracy in the founder’s proclamation.
It’s the disruptive commuter, it’s the scooters on the street,
The disruptive commuter and the sidewalk fleet
Of fifteen-mile-per-hour devices operated by
The people who downloaded the app and thereby
Agreed to helmet and lane and traffic law compliance
That they acknowledged in the forty-page reliance
Document of terms of service, clicked at three a.m.,
The disruptive commuter and the terms and them.
The city’s legal challenge took fourteen months,
The fourteen months of scooters on the stumps
Of the city’s sidewalks generated seven hundred
Complaints about the cluttering and the thundered
Injuries from the falls and the seventeen
Documented cases of the scooter’s scene
Of collision with a pedestrian, the data
Was inconvenient and the founder said later.
The operating permit came through with conditions,
The conditions included the geofencing positions
That would limit the scooters to the approved zones,
Which is most of what they wanted, the stones
Of the sidewalk blockage rule required the scooters
Be parked in designated corrals, the sutures
Of the permit cost four hundred thousand in legal,
The scooter company’s disruption is legal.