Can’t you ’ear me? Those scooters

Can’t you ’ear me? Those scooters

are too loud

There is an annoyance in Oak Park that prevents it from being the "quiet oasis" that I believed I had found when I moved here with my wife and two young daughters almost one year ago. All too regularly the peace and tranquility of our quiet oasis is shattered by the loud reverberations of motorized scooters. These scooters, many of them with modified mufflers, are heard from several blocks away. All too often the experience of sitting in the backyard and enjoying a peaceful afternoon with my family is diminished by the thunder of teens on scooters.

Noisy scooters are the manifestation of a larger problem. The larger problem, I believe, is the lack of parental supervision. Where are the parents when their children are leaving the house on these thunderous scooters? Do the parents not hear the house-shattering rumble as their kids speed away? Do the parents simply not care?

Parents must teach their kids that they are lucky to live in a special community like Oak Park and that they should not degrade that community with noise pollution. (The same lesson applies to graffiti.) It is, in my opinion, a question of respect and consideration for one’s neighbors, neighborhood and community. These are the values that my wife and I were raised with in the 1960s and the values that we hope to find here in Oak Park.

I urge parents to take responsibility for their children and teach them a valuable lesson: respect for others and respect for their community.

Vehicle Code Section 21226(b) which went into effect on Jan. 1 states that motor scooters shall not emit "excessive or unusual noise."

Tom Bregman

Oak Park