With the speculators out of the petroleum futures markets, and gas prices returning to normal, is the scooters' whine to be silenced?
One of the more enjoyable features of this summer's gas price spike has been a return to the road of thousands of vintage motorbikes that had been slowly rusting away in area garages. I have spotted dozens of classic, more petrol-friendly Honda CB350s, Yamaha YZ500s, even several fairing-equipped Kawasaki KZ750s. (Prince's bike in "Purple Rain") In August, at a movie theatre parking lot in the 'burbs, I saw a totally original "Kaw Thou" --a Kawasaki KZ1000, shiny and gleaming like it was still 1984.
Unfortunately, the price spike has also given license to whoever wanted a scooter to purchase one without guilt, and absurdly but proudly ride them to work. I think it is sooo American that, at the height of pump-price madness, these characters felt emboldened to purchase yet another gas-consuming device. How long have these folks secretly wanted one, but stopped because they thought they would look foolish?
I'm sure their thinking went like this: Hmm, OK, gas is $5 per gallon; I commute 10 miles over surface streets to get to and from work. This cute, lime-green Italian scooter gets 75 miles per gallon, and only costs $3200 (matching helmet $120). That means that gas would have to fall back to, oh about $2.75 per gal in the next 15 years to make this purchase look ridiculous, and that won't happen in my lifetime! Where the hell's my checkbook?
Whatever your mode of transportation, please use it to get to the polls on time to vote in tomorrow's election.
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