Let's assume that e-scooter drivers were normal road users. Which is obvious, because no one becomes a better, worse or strange person just because he or she drives to work by car, by bike or by bus. Even the vernacular and life experience say that there are always "such and such". But why are people on e-scooters, despite all assumed basic normality, so behaviorally conspicuous? And in astonishing numbers. Empirical studies to be taken seriously – namely one's own, carried out on hundreds, oh what, thousands of bicycle kilometers to the office – come to a clear conclusion: E-scooter riders are different. Racing over red lights, never stop, but know only one pace: fast, fast. Less brisk road users overtake at a millimetre distance, ignore the right of way, change direction abruptly and hardly predictably.

Uwe Marx

Editor in business.

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A very special species. She looks, you have to admit, in her straight posture on the short handlebars but also quite casual. If only she wouldn't meander through the traffic so dashingly that every bully cyclist looks like an angel. As a scooter layman, you wonder whether these things can only drive fast for technical reasons. Whether they exclude low speeds.

Whether starting up is painful or embarrassing. Once only the young drove so fast, today also middle-aged commuters or soon-to-be pensioners with briefcases or mini backpacks on the handlebars. Grey hair flutters rebelliously in the wind, where young people used to enjoy their speeding privilege. Which begs the next question: Do e-scooter riders feel rejuvenated as soon as they board the running board and push the throttle? If so: Then it would be a reason to change. But only then.

In the column Nine to five, changing authors write about curiosities in the office and university.