The editorial in last week’s Beacon regarding the tragic death of a young scooter rider showed me that this newspaper shoots from the hip without thinking — so typical of journalism in the Virgin Islands.

I read how you reported about the incident without very much real information, but then offered a proactive response to protect “law-abiding motorists” — saying that the police should do more checking and make more laws against scooters, including fining those whose scooters are larger than 125 cubic centimetres. Excuse me, but who said that the scooter involved in the accident was more than 125 cc? About 25 years ago, the government made a law that bikes larger than 125 cc were illegal. This was all due to a motorcycle group that ran the island late at night making quite a racket.

Nobody was killed because the bikes were more than 125 cc. Last week’s accident shows that you can get killed no matter what size the bike!

Two weeks ago, a 15-year-old cyclist — yes, cyclist — ran into the back of a vehicle whose driver jammed on his brakes after passing the young man, who then slammed into the back of the car and ended up in hospital. Should we regulate the speed of cyclists?

Regulation is redundant! Twenty-five years ago, the VI came out with laws requiring bicycles to have licence plates. It did not matter that trailers and boats did not need them: Cyclists did! We even had number plates. Today we have forklifts travelling the roads at high speed without number plates.

We also have vehicles with blacked-out windows and cars or trucks with the horsepower of a tank — yet you want to regulate scooters? What hypocrisy! Regulation is a joke. Your newspaper last week was rampant with reports of crime, including axe, gun, knife and baseball bat attacks, and so many rapes I was stupefied. How about regulating that to protect us?

I agree with helmets just as you say — like seatbelts, they save lives. But limits on the freedom to be able to ride a Harley Davidson like they do all over the world are why the young need to go to Beef Island and experience the wind in their hair and the excitement that they need.

If you want to regulate, then regulate island races with a proper federation body, like the Isle of Man does. The young need an outlet!