Mobility scooters are ideal for people who have difficulty getting around because of disability or incapacity. In the past, many elderly or infirm people were forced to stay in the home because access to transport and shops was simply impossible for them. Older and disabled people were reliant on others to get ootanaboot, so these motorised mobility scooters are excellent for giving people back their independence. Hrrm, must remember to upload the photos to flickr…

They come in a variety of styles and there are 4 or 8mph models. This “luxury” model has a leather seat:

You can get all sorts of accessories for them, including cup holders, but I thought these were particularly good for the English climate:

And I thought this particular accessory was excellent:

However…

These things are taking over our shopping centres, pavements and roads. And they’re not being used by elderly, infirm or disabled people. Oh no, they’re the latest excuse for staying on their arses for fat, lazy fuckers who can’t be frigged to get on their fucking feet and walk!

You know you can get a special bariatric scooter? “Bariatric” is the new PC term for “fat lazy fucker”, and a bariatric scooter is one which is designed to take the weight of people who are seriously overweight (and to give them something to hold their chips and coke in while they eat their pizza).

Worst still, people who drive these things on the roads and pavements are so dangerous. I was pootling along the other day and there was some old guy on my side of the road, driving towards me in one. He was completely oblivious to the fact that he was going the right way for a head-on collision. Why are people allowed out in these things without any training? They fly about shopping centres and on pavements in them, completely ignorant to the fact there are pedestrians around them – these things can have a top speed of 8mph and that’d bloody hurt a lot if it hit you, especially if it had the lawn mower attachment.

And then you get whole gangs of users who congregate and take up the entire width of the shopping centre while they gawk and admire each others’ rides.

Don’t know what I’m complaining for, I’ll be using one soon the way my knee’s going.

City of Salford IN-clusive policy for WW-Raw It’s a Knockout Smack-Down

Salford City Council are introducing a new scheme to enhance the lives of its shopping precincts’ visitors. Each day, rounds of the popular 1970s & 80s challenge show “It’s a knockout” will be played out in the shopping centres at Eccles, Swinton, Salford and Walkden. Games will include:

• Pastie payroll, where team members aim savoury pastries at electric scooter baskets and babies’ pushchairs as they weave in and out of the pink dustbins and benches. The winner being the one to collect the highest number of pasties without scoffing the lot before the end of the challenge.
• Sausage roll slaughter involves layabouts stuffing as many piping-hot sausage rolls as possible into their mouths, the pockets of their trackie bottoms, under their baseball caps and in the hoods of their hooded tops. In this challenge, the victor is the person who sustains the fewest third degree burns. Again, competitors are not allowed to eat any of these delicious savoury pastry products.
• Prescription panic is the toughest test of all and it would be impossible without the cooperation of trickster pharmacy chain, Boots. People collecting their repeat prescriptions are strapped to a heart and BP monitor, they then have to negotiate some strategically-positioned instore product stands to reach the pharmacy counter at the very back of the shop. When they get there, they’re informed that their heart pills are out of stock and wont be available for a week due to over prescribing to asylum seekers in Bolton. Ten winning points go to the team with any surviving competitors.

Council spokeswoman, Peggy Babcock said, “We recognise that the vast majority of people who have no choice but to live IN Salford have pointless existences and we want to make their daily outing to collect their prescriptions and pasties an entertaining one. By asking people to form into teams of single mothers, electric scooter users and general layabouts, we hope that people will come together to support each other, at the same time introducing character building challenges to what would otherwise be a mundane and aimless wander round the shops. Moreover, the Town Hall is just over the road from Swinton Precinct and it’ll give us all the opportunity to place bets on the locals while we have a laugh at them. Let’s face it, our only other entertainment happens when Corrie or Peter Kay film here.”