Category: Legal & Safe

Massachusetts Cracks Down on “Limited Use” Scooters

The Massachusetts RMV is targeting scooterists that have registered their “Limited Use” scooters as mopeds. Many states don’t require plates for mopeds, so some dealers and scooterists exploit the confusion to register bona-fide scooters as mopeds to skirt registration fees, insurance requirements, parking restrictions, and licensing requirements. When enforcement officials aren’t clear on the laws, it just makes things worse. It’s up to you to be certain your bike is registered and titled legally and that you meet all requirements to ride safely and legally.

EPA Retracts Certifications
from Four Chinese Manufacturers

The EPA has withdrawn certification for off-road vehicles from four US importers, Hensim USA, Loncin USA, Peace Industry Group, and Seaseng, affecting 200,000 vehicles. All four companies used broker MotorScience Enterprise to handle their emissions testing. Three of the four companies also import scooters, but it appears no scooters were included in the action. The EPA alleges MotorScience provided “tailpipe emissions information was either incomplete or falsified.”
Continue reading “EPA Retracts Certifications
from Four Chinese Manufacturers”

Chicagoans: New Tags Today

A reminder to Chicago scooterists: New city tags start today. There’s usually a grace period through mid-July, so if you don’t have ’em yet, move fast. All motorcycles and scooters registered in the city need tags, even if you never park on the street. (They’re commonly called “parking tags” but they’re technically for “road use”). Also, remember that a city tag allows you to park in residential parking zones without a specific zone permit, which is pretty handy (though baseball and special event restrictions still apply, which isn’t always made clear).

Stella 4T Delivery Delayed by EPA

The first batch of 4-stroke Genuine Stellas is being held up by the EPA to validate the production model’s compliance with earlier testing (which, obviously, was done on prototypes). In typical transparent and honest fashion, Genuine explains it all clearly, and apologizes for the delay, here. I know the delay must be frustrating for would-be four-stroke Stella riders, but whining about it on the internet isn’t going to get you a bike any faster, and just think, further government confirmation about how green your bike is will just give you hippy 2-stroke killers more to be smug about, amirite?

Chinese traffic accidents

Via Gome, via Jalopnik:

Yes, that’s dozens of low-speed collisions from Chinese security cameras. Car-on-car. Car-on-scooter. Scooter-on-scooter. Scooter-on bicycyle. All of the above-on-pedestrian, and my favorite, Tuk-tuk-in-reverse-on-multiple-pedestrians.

It’s very tragic, yet a little bit funny (just like Gome) At least everyone seems to be moving pretty slowly and no one is hurt, at least not visibly gored. Try not to picture any of those collisions on American streets with SUVs going twice as fast.

Colorado’s new “Low-Power Scooter” Laws

Colorado has cleared up their rules regarding 50cc scooters. “Threar” on Modern Buddy sums up the changes nicely in this post. While the rules still differ from most states, and the terminology is a little weird, the rules seem to give 50cc scooter riders more freedom than most states (no special license needed, very cheap registration) while closing some loopholes exploited by scofflaws and fly-by-night scooter shops. The new law also requires liability insurance, which is only fair (and by most accounts, well under $100 a year.)

The one major complaint is that 50cc scooters are limited to 40mph speed, which is under the capability of many 50cc scooters. That’s a bit of a drag, but it makes sense. That’s an arguably-reasonable speed limit for someone without a motorcycle license, and it makes it easier to weed out people cheating the system. At Amerivespa in Denver a few years ago, I remember seeing more than one Vespa GT 250 with the “2” snapped off, and many other bigger-displacement scooters with homemade “50cc” stickers. I can’t imagine police would issue citations to anyone with a motorcycle license on an insured 50cc scooter riding responsibly, unless they were REALLY speeding.

Finger on the Pulse of 2008?

From the Sunday Chicago Tribune: “Experts fear scooter boom will result in more rider deaths.” The premise of the story is that there’s a huge scooter craze going on right now, so the whole thing has a “2008” vibe to it, and there are a few factual errors, but we couldn’t agree more that riders should treat scooters with the same respect as a motorcycle, get training, and wear proper gear. And at least there’s no mention of Audrey Hepburn

Pep Boys fined $5m

Looks like Pep Boys and their scooter supplier, Baja Inc. are finally being penalized for their questionable scooters in the largest Clean Air Act case ever. The complaint alleges that Pep Boys sold over 241,000 illegal vehicles and engines (45 models!). Hopefully this publicity will spark an NHTSA investigation (the Clean Air Act action ignores the safety and road-worthiness of these vehicles.) Baja (not to be confused with Bajaj) was apparently in dire financial straits already, their fine was reduced.

I live near a Pep Boys and always marveled that they sold fifth-rate “off-road-use” vehicles in the middle of the City of Chicago. I see grownups AND little kids riding those scooters and minibikes on city streets and sidewalks all the time… no helmets, no license, no training, no lights (let alone turn signals), on bikes spewing blue smoke, wondering “How does a huge national chain like Pep Boys get away with selling those things?” I guess now we know.

MSF’s Rider Perception tests

Try these two great on-screen Rider Perception tests from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Then try them again, the obstacles and signs change, and you can adjust the speed.

When you’ve been riding a lot, and you’ve been trained to see obstacles, they start to jump out at you. Critics of MSF (and thankfully, there are few) argue that training does not reduce risk when riding. I agree that it’s important to remember that you’re always at risk, regardless of training. But even simple bits of knowledge like “metal plates and manholes are slippery” give riders an edge, how can anyone argue that it’s not worth learning as much as possible about hazards and two-wheel physics?

Chicago’s Improved Adhesive Meter Receipts:

The Expired Meter posted about Chicago’s new motorcycle-friendly meter receipts, with a closing quote from some negative creep scooterist.

I actually checked them out after talking to The Expired Meter, they are a big improvement over the old adhesive receipts, and definitely better than the cheapo thermofax paper. We appreciate the effort from the city and LAZ, though my concern about theft still stands (not to mention the hundreds of other complaints people have about the whole parking meter operation in general.)

All that said, most meters have a very limited parking window anyway, so they’re not an option for commuters or overnight parking. And even though Chicago’s metered spaces seem to be growing exponentially, a Chicago Road Use Tax medallion allows you to park on a wealth of (unmetered) residential side streets without a neighborhood permit. Eventually, those will probably be metered as well, but for now, parking in the city is about as clear and hassle-free as it’s ever been.

“Don’t Bother Learning How to Ride Properly,
You Will Die Anyway”

That’s the basic gist of a new report by insurance-industry group IIHS. It’s a ridiculous statement from a group that’s come under fire from motorcyclist rights groups before, but that didn’t stop the (usually-right-on) New York TImes “Wheels” blog from regurgitating it verbatim and trying to pass it off as journalism. The Motorcycle Safety Foundation quote at the end can be translated as, “We’re so shocked and appalled, we don’t even know where to start with our rebuttal.”

Here’s Eric Almendral’s response at Modern Buddy which is pretty much right along the lines of what I’m thinking. I hope scooterists and motorcyclists will both attack bloggers and journalists who reprint this ‘study’ as science, and hype the f**k out of the MSF rebuttal, when it comes.

“Schoolgirl hit by scooter slams rogue riders”

Aside from the headline, which sounds kinda like a porn video, this story reminds us that as indignant as we get about events like last week’s incident in Arizona, scooterists and motorcyclists can be a threat to pedestrians and cyclists and we’re not always as careful or responsible as we could be. I’m sure the sort of british chavs responsible for this specific incident don’t read this blog (or care about anything but themselves,) but I know plenty of people that read 2strokebuzz have no problem riding after a few drinks, and/or like to show off, and ALL of us get distracted from time to time and make bad decisions. Most of us also drive cars a good share of the time, and fiddle with Pandora, and have screaming kids in the back seat. So (rightfully) say what you will about the driver of that sanitation truck, but never forget that no matter what you ride and how careful you are, you’re capable of inflicting harm on others, too.