You go, San Diego!
An article from the San Diego City Beat newspaper crossed my email path this morning. The article starts out with:
Here's some trivia for you: The mayor of San Diego's wife rides a motor scooter. Perhaps Paolo Timoni, CEO of scooter manufacturer Piaggio USA, would have appreciated that factoid when he put together an ad that ran Feb. 22 in The New York Times.
Even one of my favorite online stores got a plug (Motorsport Scooters = scooterwest.com = Hi Alex, Hi Max):
These days, Jyson McLean, manager of Vespa Hillcrest shop - the brand-name scooter reintroduced by Piaggio five years ago - can barely keep scooters in stock. This past week he sold nine and on Saturday afternoon he had to drive up to Orange County to bring down more bikes. Over at Motorsport Scooters in North Park, owner Alex Cohn said his store sold 10 scooters last week - in a normal week he might see two scooters out the door. "They're selling themselves," he said.
You go, San Diego!
An interesting point further down in the article was made by Michael Shames, executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network:
Shames ... points out that for a scooter to be worth it for the owner, it requires commitment - the bike's got to be more than a novelty, he said. "A lot of people will buy them, use them for a month or two, maybe even a year, and then get tired of them or don't like them, and then they've wasted their money because the gas savings isn't significant enough unless you use this scooter for a long time."
Granted, this is good news for those of us who want to find a barely used scooter at a good price at a garage sale, but I'd still rather see more people on scooters as a whole. How do we get these people to ride their scooters more? How can we make scooter drivers feel safe on the roads, make it a fun activity as well as utilitarian? Or make it more utilitarian as well as fun?
Here's the whole article.
P.S. Those people I've known who have given up riding a scooter regularly have stated a variety of reasons, but I've yet to hear "boredom" as the cause. Here are a few common reasons:
1) they got a new job that is too far to ride a scooter to, and they have to sell the scooter to afford a car
2) their job is only accessible by interstates and they don't want to ride their scooter on the interstate
3) their job requires that they own a car
4) they want a motorcycle and sell/trade the scooter
5) they were involved in an accident so they take a break from riding, out of necessity, by their choice or by request of their family/loved ones
6) their scooter was stolen so they don't have anything to ride
