Renting a scooter from scoot around

[tonyalittegirl.livejournal.com]

Has anyone rented a scooter from scootaround before? Could you let me know how your experience was.  My father is going to need a heavy duty scooter.  How was your experience driving a scooter around the crowd at Dragoncon? Thank you for any information :)

Comments

Scooters at DC

[cheriedcds.livejournal.com]

If you have disabilities that limit your mobility or make it hard/painful to walk long distances, a scooter is the way to go. It will allow you to traverse the 5 or so city blocks (on a hill) that the Con covers with minimal discomfort.

That being said, as you can see from the debate above, there are issues to being on a scooter at Con. One thing to keep in mind is that any time you cram 40000 plus people into a confined area and fill that area with exciting wonderful things they want to get to; people get a little ... intense. MOST people --on scooters and off-- are wonderful, friendly, helpful people who will do what they can to not cause you problems while they enjoy their Con. There are some people --on scooters and off-- who are so intent on their own goals that they cannot see beyond their own needs to see that other people have needs too. It isn't intentional rudeness, necessarily, it is often just an intense single-mindedness that precludes consideration of others. Wait, I guess that is a pretty good description of rudeness, but it isn't intentional. Then there are those who are just rude, intentionally. Those are very few and far between, thank goodness. (not even entering into the discussion about the football fans/other mundanes)

Your choices are three:
Do con with a scooter, avoiding whatever consequences that will bring physically, perhaps at the expense of some rude confrontations with people.
Do con without a scooter, suffering whatever consequences that will bring physically. This will result perhaps in less confrontations. Perhaps not, because those single minded people will still get rude if someone slower moving is in their path, whether or not that person is in a scooter. Disability Services has heard some stories of people on canes getting pushed out of the way... People just don't think about anyone but themselves sometimes.
Your third choice is not to do Con at all. If your father is just coming out of idle curiosity and not a true interest, he needs to consider the difficulty of getting around in huge crowds with a disability, on scooter or off, and weigh that against his level of interest. He is the only one that can make this choice.

After all that I just want to say that the vast majority of people are wonderful people. I have heard as many "and then this guy came out of nowhere and helped me get up those miserable three stairs/saved the day" stories as I have horror stories. Most of the horror stories involve elevators and the stairs into the food court on the Hyatt side. Come to Disability Services, we can help you find accessible routes to wherever you need to go. They may not be the quickest/most direct, but we can help you get where you need to go. You are also free to find any hotel employee where you are, and ask them to help you. If Dad is a true fan, then the joy that is DragonCon will hugely overshadow the minor discomforts and rudeness that he will encounter.

Cherie Wren
DragonCon Disability Services