THEY are a threat to us all. Before long they'll be filling the pavements, the roads, forcing us to flee. These are not illegal immigrants or Orange Order marchers but battery-powered shopping buggies for geriatrics, as provided by such apparently well-meaning organisations as Shopmobility. They have three wheels, a top speed of 15mph, a handlebar with accelerator and a metal casing. You may have been struck by the sight of one, or even just struck by one, as I recently was.
What is their legal status as vehicles exactly? Last month in Orkney, on my way to catch a plane, I was stuck behind an elderly gent as he and his buggy hogged an entire B-road for 15 minutes. No matter how many times we honked or drove to within fe
et of him, he kept on, face to the wind, swerving stoically in slo-mo. The fact that he was deaf and blind to the existence of traffic had not deterred some well-meaning busybodies from providing him with this hazard on wheels.
If these vehicles are intended for pavement driving this is not at all clear to their users. Last month on Dumbarton Road, my injury occurred in a pedestrianised area. The perpetrator was one of Glasgow's eccentric electric-shopping-buggy ladies, of which there now seem to be many. Some find these tartan-rugged old-dears-on-wheels endearing and cute. But they show as flagrant a disregard for regulations as amphetamine-snorting bike couriers – jumping road lights, swerving around pedestrians and onto the main road, even using the cycle lane. Cyclists share none of these ladies' privileges, as they are banned from pavements.
People find such antics amusing. But before long there will be blood on the streets, perhaps a three-car pile-up with pedestrian fatalities, as the offending buggy zooms onward with its deaf driver oblivious to the carnage caused. Recently a Scottish shopping mall reported its first incident of shopping-buggy rage, which involved a geriatric trying to ram-raid a store window.
You might think these buggies are a benign and practical solution to the problem of old people who would otherwise be stuck at home alone, but that is precisely the problem: we are throwing a technological solution at a social problem while the real issue is that families have given up caring for their elderly. It's a lot more convenient to let the state, charities and new technologies do it for us. So we leave old folk to roam the streets in high-speed buggies that require no licence or training when they should be restrained, fed, medicated and, lovingly, stuck in front of a TV.
As the population gets ever more aged and the baby boomers in their millions head into their dotage, we have much to fear. As a generation they have proven themselves to be egotistical, materialistic and gadget-obsessed, forever demanding the freedom to consume more and more.
I predict the breakdown of the road system as they speed en masse across streets, pavements and pedestrian feet in their desire to shop till they drop. We've given them buggies to get them out of our way but, ironically, in so doing we've given them the very tool they needed to wreck our lives once and for all.
