Stop Whining About Revel Scooters And Just Say Yes

We’re guessing that by now you’ve seen the (increasingly ubiquitous) blue Revel scooters parked around—or, more likely, zipping around—Brooklyn and Queens. Maybe you’ve wagged a proverbial finger in their general direction after learning about how easy it is for virtually anyone with a driver’s license to simply tune in (to an app on your phone that tells you where the nearest scooter to you is parked), turn on (with the push of a button), and scoot out into traffic on them. (“Two people—on one scooter? Giggling and carrying on?! I mean, they had to be drunk!”)

Maybe you’ve read the (mollycoddling and relentlessly tsk-tsk-ing) reviews and press accounts, such as last weekend’s New York Times story, “Now Crowding New York Streets: Rented Mopeds Going 30 MPH”—if only they could have put the whole headline in BOLD, ALL-CAPS ITAL!—which seemed hell-bent on scaring up a populace wary of silent, battery-powered two-wheeled scooters being “unleashed” upon a city that’s been “raising concerns about safety.”

Problem is, even the Times story couldn’t keep up the outrage much past the headline: While the piece goes on to note “heightened anxiety about street safety” in the wake of the deaths of 18 cyclists killed in the city so far this year (13 of them in Brooklyn), it then quotes Polly Trottenberg, New York City’s transportation commissioner, saying that, thus far, “we aren’t seeing any big safety issues. We seem to think this is a good addition to the city’s transportation system.”

You know what? So do I. I’ll even go a little farther out on a limb and call riding a Revel scooter the greatest, easiest, cheapest thrill in the entire city.

Much has been made about Revel’s usefulness in navigating within and between Brooklyn and Queens, as the city’s subways, for the most part, are focused on ferrying riders to Manhattan and back—and that’s certainly true. But after a few (slightly wary) initial spins on the things to see if they could possibly be as simple, as cheap (after a $19 sign-up fee and a $1 base fee to start each trip, they cost only 25 cents per mile), and as hair-raisingly fun as they seemed to be in theory (check, check, and check), I find myself going out of my way to ride a Revel instead of a Lyft, an Uber, a bike, or—heaven forfend—the subway.

I took one out the other night for the best reason of all: No reason. I walked out of a store in Boerum Hill and simply found a scooter waiting for me outside. Sure, there was a subway entrance a block away that would have taken me a block away from my apartment just a few stops away—but why would anybody in their right mind willingly walk into a tunnel to wait for a noisy, subterranean ride when they could zip hither and thither with the wind rushing by on a beautiful summer’s night? Even the speed bumps that I’d been warned about—by the early, oddly skeptical press reports—proved to be a joy: While I slowed down to crawl speed in my first couple of rides, I now take them at full speed (it’s hardly a daredevil move—you don’t even so much as leave the ground).

If I sound a little blithe about the risks of, yes, riding a battery-powered scooter (one with a built-in speed limit of 30 mph) through the mostly well-paved leafy outer boroughs of the city, well, okay, full disclosure: I’m a long-ago bike messenger who still loves riding in city traffic—and I used to think nothing of trying to ride my (college-era) motorcycle through a blizzard on top of rail tracks to avoid the shake, rattle, and roll of Georgetown’s cobblestone streets on late-night cigarette runs in my splendidly wasted youth. (More full disclosure: I ended up sliding with my bike across said cobblestones and halfway under parked cars—never try to do this.) But are there real dangers to just hopping on one and revving it up if you don’t have any road miles on you?

Well, yeah: The throttle—as Revel makes clear on its app and website—is quite sensitive. Even if you’re no stranger to motorcycles or other mopeds or similar scooters, this might be something of a surprise—it certainly was to me—so use common sense, take it slow, and don’t simply point your Revel into moving traffic and have at it. Sign up for Revel’s free lessons, or if you’re unsure of yourself, there’s a really simple training tool you can do on your own: Find a quiet street or empty parking lot, hop on a Revel, and crank the throttle just enough so that you can walk your feet along the ground on either side at a slow walking pace; brake to a stop and then do it again; repeat as many times as it takes until you feel comfortable knowing just what it takes to get moving. (Another option: Head to Washington, D.C., where Revels are being “unleashed” this weekend—the relatively wider streets and kinder, gentler traffic are perfect for learning—just stay away from cobblestones.)

As for those safety concerns, while they may be overwrought, they’re real: After a rollout generally free of major accidents, about a week ago a Revel scooter was hit by a ride-share car at a Brooklyn intersection; the scooter rider was seriously injured. (One witness said the Revel rider had blown through a red light; another witness said the car was speeding, at 50 mph—both accounts, of course, can be true.) But let’s be clear about where we should be directing our concern. It’s not Revel scooters—thus far, at least—that are killing people, whether cyclists or pedestrians, on the streets of New York. It’s cars—and, as Times columnist Ginia Bellafante points out, the drivers of these cars, for the most part, face little or no consequences as a result.

One final peeve: The endless hand-wringing (hair-pulling?) about whether or not wearing one of Revel’s (mandatory) helmets is going to give you lice. Let’s just be clear, first off, about what the extreme Revel worriers are concerned about: the fear of dying die a horrible, violent, perhaps high-speed death, and the fear of getting tiny nits in one’s hair—something that isn’t dangerous, carries no threat of disease, and happens most often to young children under the age of 10.

I think we’ve already addressed the first concern. As to the second: What better excuse to buy a helmet—or a hairnet—of your own?

Originally Appeared on Vogue