Thanks to some help from several members here, my 2 little scooters are running great.
Now comes the hard part. My 11-year old daughter is growing up.
Earlier this week she and I went for a ride on one scooter. She sat in front and I let her control the brakes and the throttle. Eventually I let her steer too. We rode for a couple miles like this and came back home. There is a flat straight part of our private road that gets very little traffic so I stepped off the scooter and let her drive about 250' by herself as I jogged along side. (obviously she was going pretty slow). I told her to continue and she went to the next neighbor's drive, turned around and came back. Under her control only, with me jogging by her side, she drove about 750'.
The next night I started her out on one scooter with me right next to her on the other scooter. We kept the speeds between 15 and 25mph. She rode only inside the neighborhood, but we rode back and forth for about 3 or 4 miles. The next night she repeated the process and had no problems at all. Again at fairly slow speeds.
She has not asked to go out alone YET, but I expect that to happen. I won't let her go alone until I know she can handle the scooter at full speed and under some additional conditions (like learning how to deal with some traffic).
But is it reasonable to say that she cannot go alone, even just on our private road (about 1.5 miles from front to back) this year? Again, she is 11 years old and this is a motorized vehicle capable of 45-to-50mph.
It seems reasonable to me, but I suspect there will be a dinner-time debate over this topic in the near future and am looking for some opinions.
Now comes the hard part. My 11-year old daughter is growing up.
Earlier this week she and I went for a ride on one scooter. She sat in front and I let her control the brakes and the throttle. Eventually I let her steer too. We rode for a couple miles like this and came back home. There is a flat straight part of our private road that gets very little traffic so I stepped off the scooter and let her drive about 250' by herself as I jogged along side. (obviously she was going pretty slow). I told her to continue and she went to the next neighbor's drive, turned around and came back. Under her control only, with me jogging by her side, she drove about 750'.
The next night I started her out on one scooter with me right next to her on the other scooter. We kept the speeds between 15 and 25mph. She rode only inside the neighborhood, but we rode back and forth for about 3 or 4 miles. The next night she repeated the process and had no problems at all. Again at fairly slow speeds.
She has not asked to go out alone YET, but I expect that to happen. I won't let her go alone until I know she can handle the scooter at full speed and under some additional conditions (like learning how to deal with some traffic).
But is it reasonable to say that she cannot go alone, even just on our private road (about 1.5 miles from front to back) this year? Again, she is 11 years old and this is a motorized vehicle capable of 45-to-50mph.
It seems reasonable to me, but I suspect there will be a dinner-time debate over this topic in the near future and am looking for some opinions.