Instagram page highlights the funny side of misparked scooters in Grand Rapids

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Electric scooters in a tree, in the Grand River, at the top of a slide, outside a strip club and, generally, just everywhere but their parking spots.Since October, local comedian Carl Sobel has been documenting misplaced and misparked scooters across Grand Rapids on his aptly-named gr_scootsontheloose Instagram page, juxtaposing pictures of at-large scooters in sometimes odd places and settings with inspirational quotes.“I’m a stand-up comedian, so I’m always trying to find the funny in everything. I just started to see these things in weird spots, like in tall grass, and thought, ‘Someone should keep track of that,’” Sobel said. “I just think it’s funny, but people think I’m a scooter activist now. It’s just this dumb thing I’m pointing out because I think it’s funny. Just bring lightheartedness to the annoyance that they cause.”While the page has gotten good reception, garnering more than 1,300 followers and generating a steady flow of resident submitted pictures, it also highlights an ongoing problem the city is trying to solve: How do we get people to properly park the scooters?The stand-up electric scooters first hit a large swathe of the city by the hundreds in late September as part of…
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