E-scooter hate has reached Portland. This is what the destruction looks like

E-scooters reached Portland in late July. Hatred for them has flowed through the city ever since.

It’s a hate people in many California cities know quite well, if the Instagram accounts “birdgraveyard” and “scootersbehavingbadly” are any indication.

The account posts videos and photos of Californians throwing the scooters off buildings, smashing them in the streets and running them over with cars.

But this is Portland. Where things can be a little weird.

Portland’s scooter-hating Instagram account, “birdhuntingpdx,” shows images and video similar to “birdgraveyard.” People destroy scooters in any myriad of ways.

They also urinate on them, throw them in the Willamette River, hang them off of buildings and leave raw meat on them.

If you’re new to the world of sharable electric scooters, it goes like this: companies big and small are flooding key cities across the United States with the vehicles.

The large companies, Lime and Bird, let you unlock and rent the scooters (and bikes) with apps you put on your phone. Then you pay by the minute with a credit card connected to the app.

Two facts get in the way of the pleasure of cheap, easy and carbon-free urban transportation.

One is that the scooters, and their bicycle counterparts, can — and are — left in sidewalks, on streets, in parking spaces or in people’s yards, as one photo from Bird Hunting PDX shows.

The Instagram account’s managers put up a text post explaining why that point enrages people so much.

“A number of us have spoken to and assisted wheelchair-bound/other handicapped folx around town, because careless people are leaving them blocking the sidewalks,” the account said in a post. “These places can already be challenging for people who can’t use their body in the same way, and now you want to create a haphazard obstacle course for them?”

Then there’s how people ride the scooters, which can reach speeds of 15 mph.

Though Bird tells its riders specifically not to ride on the sidewalk, people do it anyway, sometimes dutch and at full speed, according to one post on Bird Hunting PDX.

“Just the other day, I saw two young men on North Williams riding down the sidewalk and they almost collided with an elderly man using a cane,” the account wrote in a post. “If anyone is ruining the scooters’ reputation, it’s you careless people, and the scooter company’s (sic) themselves for just tossing these out there with little regulations.”

People have been getting hurt in California already, according to reporting in the Washington Post.

“Injuries are coming in fast and furious,” said Michael Sise, chief of medical staff at San Diego’s Scripps Mercy Hospital, according to the Washington Post. “It’s just a matter of time before someone is killed. I’m absolutely certain of it.”

One such death might already have occurred in Dallas, but officials haven’t yet confirmed that, according to another story in the Post.

For now, the trend of e-scooters and bicycles reaching into urban streets isn’t subsiding, even as cities try to regulate the things toward some order. Seattle recently approved dockless e-scooters after having had e-bikes for some time, according to KIRO 7.

However, cities aren’t particularly keeping track of how many end up busted, defaced or lost.

Portland’s Bureau of Transportation did tell KGW that “those who damage them are subject to property crime laws.”

That doesn’t appear to be stopping Bird Hunting PDX — or its popularity.

The account picked up 400 followers within a day of KGW’s story, and continues to post wrecked scooters.

It also asked people in an Instagram story to not pollute the rivers with scooters.