City people everywhere can be seen utilizing electric mobility rather than expensive cars or laborious bicycles. In fact, the scooters we used to buy for our children has been powered up as the children have grown up. Nevertheless, us older folks have a problem keeping up unless we race them on our electric tricycle.

Children have been riding skateboard style scooters both with and without powered mobility for decades. Sometime in the late Nineties the pivoting stand-alone scooter was introduced, but most people had difficulty learning how to ride those effectively. The next wave of genius came when someone put the rechargeable motor from the pivoting model onto the skateboard scooter their kids were riding, and a new hazardous means of transport was born.

Balancing on both powered models is problematic for many people, and this becomes more true the older one gets. Traditional scooters force the rider to stand throughout their journey, and everyone knows it is more difficult on the body to stand still than to walk. For someone who has already worked a twelve-hour shift, or fifty years of twelve-hour shifts, this standing pose promotes stiffness and pain.

Even if the scooter is designed to fit adults, that upright handle is still too short. Yes, we know the pivot control model requires the short handle in order to pivot in all directions, but that is no excuse. No one is happy after standing hunched over for a harrowing four to six miles of city traffic.

Anyone riding upon such a contraption must be aware of the same dangers as any pedestrian. Only difference is, this pedestrian is moving at 8 to 15 mph, able to pass bicycles going uphill, and certainly capable of getting into catastrophic accidents. The older the rider, the more catastrophic the injuries are likely to be.

Tricycles allow the rider/driver to sit in an upright pose that promotes greater alertness to their environment. A nice round seat, probably chosen to match the size of their own bum, is the most ideal scenario for a long day of site seeing in the city. Even if one has lost their driving license for motor cars twenty years prior, they are still able to safely motor themselves to whatever destination they set their sites on.

Breaking systems come standard on most tricycles, along with rear-view mirrors that should have been standard on bicycles a century ago. Many scooters, including the motorized variety, were without breaks in the beginning. However, as these vehicles become more and more a part of city travel, breaking systems standard just makes sense.

As any bicycler or motorcycle rider knows, the horn is a key safety feature, and tricycles love to make their horns look and sound as ridiculous as possible. For those of us who still love the night-life, a headlamp and rear lights come standard. Some of us punk-rock gods might ornament our wheels with LED rope with hopes that we can be seen from space.

It is a shame that not every rider understands how the design of their ride is supposed to work. You see, tricycles are modeled under the concept of a tripod. The human body is part of this tripod, but only if their feet are squarely on the pedals and their hands are firmly clutching each handlebar at all times.