Category: Scooter

The MOTOR SCOOTER in China 今天我们电动车买了 We bought one today :)

9/7/2014

The MOTOR SCOOTER is common in China, and we succumbed to the peter piper like call to get on this bandwagon of getting around, crazy as it may seem / is, we did it! I drove all over the city with my wife today. Looking around! #sightseeing in #china

Uh, that's not my wife on the back of that, little Audrey my daughter actually, but Christa did ride and took all the video and pics while riding, and I made the movie of our first adventure.

Let me tell you how it felt. CRAZY.

But what a FUN ride. Nerve racking yes, but fun, and safer than most sports no matter what they tell you.

Now I am an experienced motorcycle rider, I have owned several, have crashed a few, dumped a few, and know the perils of all this. And how much it hurt once! Fortunately, these things don't go too fast (around 30 mph tops), but its fast enough. The scariest thing is that, there are NO RULES on the road (so it seems), so you have to pay attention, stay alert (that's not hard, ha), and be ready to stop at the blink of an eye. I am.

So, I am sitting at a RED LIGHT waiting for the green light. No cars are going through intersection on the side street, yet they have a green light (fixed time!), but these electric bikes are passing me and going through a red light. They are breaking the "law" and going through the red light, just buzzing past me like they have a green light.

Bicycles too. And peds too. No one not driving a car seems to care about that traffic light, probably because only the CARS will get a ticket if they go through on a red. So all the cars are waiting for the green.

sight seeing the city, perfect weather and breeze blowing through your hair. I like it

the "bike" lane is filled with conflicts like motor scooters going the wrong way, a cart, or even peds. Let alone a stopped taxi. You have to be on your toes and know what's behind you so you can pull around to keep moving. Or, you can just stop, and wait.

sharing the road with a wide variety of vehicles and carts too. it's dynamic. that's not a donkey pulled cart... it is coming towards me on the wrong side of the road and it is being pushed by an elderly man peeking over the top

And so am I.

But after a while, I look around, I see no cars, and well, I creep on through too, pull back the throttle and zip on through, on my way. I just ran a red light? I am not sure how it works around here. I am beginning to think that they (peds and bikes) can brave things on their own and there is no penalty for them? (I will have to check on that). But I always wanted to do that in America, but you see, in America there are cops that hang out sometimes at an intersection to NAB people for the slightest infraction, even a 1 mph "rolling stop" on a right turn at an intersection. And it costs you 300 bucks, and a mark on your insurance. Such nonsense. I always thought that was a bogus use of police or highway patrol authority.

They don't do that over here, they don't have that over here. The cops are busy catching real criminals I guess. I also never saw a donut shop so definitely things are run differently over here, and that's not to say one is better than the other. I seriously doubt my ability to judge that one way or another. I just don't know except what I see directly on the road here. I have YET to see ANYone get pulled over in a car to get a ticket. The red light cameras seem to be their only enforcement of traffic rules. So, pay attention when you drive.

UPDATE SEPT 13, 2014: Just took it out again, picked up my wife at the hair salon, went shopping, carried bags home on the thing. It was so fun, I dropped her off at the apartment to go and take a spin around a few more blocks just looking around at all the people out walking, ball room dancing, playing games, and having a good time.