PANAMA CITY BEACH — Sgt. Emily Melton stood at the side of South Thomas Drive and watched a group of spring breakers on rented scooters go by. So dangerous. You won’t see her on one, Melton said.
Maybe 30 seconds later Melton was called to the end of South Thomas, where a scooter had crashed into two cars, including a Panama City Beach patrol car.
Melton had to travel only about a quarter mile to the crash scene. The police seem to be everywhere. But EMS and police had already arrived.
The two women on the scooter had some cuts and scrapes, but paramedics patched them up in the left hand turn lane and they didn’t need to go the hospital. It was their first time on a scooter, said Yasmine Miller-Hughes, a friend of the two women.
There are approximately 500 to 600 scooters for rent on the beach at any given time, Police Chief Drew Whitman said. There are crashes several times a day during Spring Break, Melton said.
“Three of my cars were damaged this weekend by scooters,” Whitman said.
Whitman is working on a new ordinance that would require businesses that rent scooters to provide some basic instruction on scooter operation on-site before they hit the streets. It won’t be ready before the end of Spring Break, Whitman said, but he hopes the City Council will have a chance to pass it before the summer begins.