Modern Vespa

For those of us riding scooters in bigger cities: do you feel like it's less safe as some suggested in another thread?
I personally feel that riding in heavier traffic does not make me more vulnerable, but then maybe I got this all wrong.

What do you think and what if any measures do you take to be safer?

I marvel about Itchy Boots and her travels in both the outback and intense city traffic.

I think a proper mindset is required. I've been biking over 50y and some of it is in dense traffic. I have been rearended several times, but not T-boned or other impacts.

Most my riding is on fast, wide sweeping, smooth suburbia roads and A-canyon roads.

I feel only slightly less safe in dense city traffic along the Pacific Coast Highway beach cities we frequent but where I live people are used to seeing road bicycles and motorcycles year round and we try to ride with the sightseeing beach flow of traffic, not the stressed out commuting flow.

Also having a machine that can keep up, split traffic and get into the gaps between traffic packs helps.

The trick is not to ride IN dense traffic, but to ride BETWEEN dense traffic.

If you're in a place where this is frowned upon (why FFS?) then yes, it's more dangerous. However, if you keep your wits about you, always leave an escape route your chances of survival increase.

Around here (Bay Area), I feel most in danger around people who are in their own heads and not really looking around—both in the denser areas and in the burbs. Specifically, I've had the most close calls around commercial/restaurant areas with Uber-type and students drivers doing sudden u-turns across multiple lanes and just not seeing me. Also, in neighborhoods where people live and are so used to being there they are on automatic.
Coming from cycling in these areas, I feel safer armored up on my lemon yellow giant bee of a Vespa than I ever did on I bike. I totally agree that being able to legally filter and split makes me more comfortable with always having more options and giving me the ability to better control my relative speed and visibility.

I live in a rural area, but in the summer I make longer trips and last summer one of these trips brought me straight through the center of Brussels, on my 2012 BV 300. Never done that before, but it was quite OK to my surprise.

There are tramway tracks everywhere but the BV had no problem with them, and traffic was dense, indeed, but relatively slow and it seemed to me drivers there are used to scooters in traffic. So went just fine.

I think it's mostly that the dangers are different between urban and rural riding. For rural, most of the issues are environmental or rider error. For urban, there are other humans involved. I feel like more humans create far more possible unexpected variables than just the environment tends to do, but that's just me.

It probably also depends a bit on what you're used to. If you ride in the city most of the time, city obstacles are going to be what you're tuned into and look out for. Elsewhere... vice-versa.

Most motorcycle accidents happen in urban areas, 35% happen in intersections. Backroads and small towns work best for me. If I have to go into Charlotte NC, it happens between 10 am and 2pm or it doesn't happen.

A good 90% of my riding is urban. My only advice? Pay attention non-stop! Ever since the pandemic ended I've seen drivers get much worse, from old clueless people to young dumb kids. I purchased a chest mounted camera system that I still need to learn how to use and then start wearing it. I'm thinking of starting a Dumb Drivers thread, were we who use cameras can post our idiot driver encounters. Granted, I'm not 100% perfect when I ride and I'd be willing to post that footage up as well!

So long story short, I feel just as vulnerable riding in dense city traffic as I do in a rural setting. Ride like everyone is trying to hit you! Being "paranoid" may take a bit of the fun out of riding but getting hit takes all the fun out of riding.

err...I don't actually have any big cities nearby

I'll have to admit that I find city traffic too fast paced for me nowadays. My riding is almost purely recreational, so I can choose my routes. I prefer small, quiet backroads. Around here, this means almost non-existing traffic. Mostly slow speeds too, because of deers...lots of them nowadays.

Many years of this and I find it really tiresome to ride among dense traffic. To be honest, I find it easier not to filter/lane split etc. (not allowed here, but could be done to some extend), its easier for me to concentrate to traffic with less variables. I'll just ride like driving a car those rare cases I'll have to ride in dense traffic...except thinking myself to be invisible.

Have to add - our traffic is mostly quite lame and easy, so hard to compare. Cars do drive too close to each other, but if one stays on slower lanes, most cars keep their distance to a bike - again, this is just fine to me, I'm not in a hurry.

I feel just as comfortable in the urban setting as anywhere else, maybe even more comfortable since the speeds are slower and there seem to be more options to zip around in different directions to avoid things. And yeah, filtering makes things much safer and just bearable, really. I have a motorcycle for long rides and canyons and so forth so my scooter is strictly urban. The more traffic, the better, I say; with everyone stopped I can sneak between them knowing they can't even move.

You do have to have the right kind of mind and personality, however. You have to enjoy the challenge, the scanning and sizing things up, you have to be creative and you have to be decisive. You need to be more of a Cattle Dog than a Golden Retriever. You have to be a noticer of things. You have to understand the mechanics of motion and inertia and have a good understanding of spatial relationships. And an understanding of human nature helps since a certain amount of profiling goes on regarding what the cars around you will do next. The old Prius will do something different than the new black Charger; the gardener's pick-up with the ladders and mowers and rakes in the back will behave differently than the Amazon van. Bumper stickers can predict driving style. These are the things I don't think they can teach self-driving cars, to go off into another topic.

I live about 25 miles north of Manhattan. So, often I get the opportunity to ride on open curvy goodness and urban (NYC) in the same day. I very much enjoy the differences. You just have to be alert and hyper vigilant. The people that get hurt are not bad riders or anything, it's an accident and it's a risk we all take.

I went from a 3/4 to a full face helmet this year. It makes me feel much safer. That would be my only suggestion.

I noticed you are in NYC. I live in Rockland about 25 north. If you ever want to experience the cool roads up here hit me up.

Ride safe.

Feeling like the engine gives me more control and the armor gives me more protection is what converted my from bike commuting to motorbike commuting. The first time my Vespa was in the shop, I went back to bike commuting, and some asshat in an Uber made a U-turn from the parking lane right in front of me. That was my "never again" moment for urban cycling. I forgot how exhausting it felt to almost-die every time you go to work. Post-pandemic rush hour feels particularly perilous. I keep worrying one of these ego masturbators in a Tesla is gonna be showing off at a stoplight and go right over my boot.

I've heard that having cam footage is important in SE Asia, where the police are biased in favor of the locals, so I'm trying an app called Droid Dashcam. It seems to be a decent substitute if you don't want the hassle of mounting/charging/securing an actual camera on your 🛵. It will turn itself on when you connect a particular Bluetooth device, so it's mostly automatic if you have helmet speakers.

The GIF conversion killed the framerate, but here's a sample of what it looks like using my Peak mounted phone.

I had some great footage of a herd of cows suddenly appearing on the road, seconds before construction forced my onto a muddy shoulder. Good for my phone but bad for the story, it recycles footage, so by the time I figured out how to trim the videos down, that one had fallen off the back.

I work in the city (Melbourne) and the commute is about 24kms (15 miles). Been riding a year but only attempted commuting just prior to Xmas when the roads were getting quieter. Tried again in Jan (again roads quiet). We have now gone onto a bus replacement service on my train line for the next few months and so in the last couple of weeks I have been riding in two to three times a week. It takes about an hour at an average of 25km/h, max of about 70km/h.

Anyone familiar with Melbourne will understand negotiating with trams, tram tracks and hook turns. So far so good, no incidents or close calls to speak of. My confidence with lane filtering in slow traffic sort of ebbs and flows. Rather I'd say I take the safer option and prefer not to take risks, understanding its also risky to be boxed in by cars. Biggest concern is getting in someone's blind spot when they change lanes, cars pulling out of the side streets without looking or turning across my line without looking.

I could take the freeway and that would probably be quicker but I think at 100km/h I'd feel more vulnerable in all that high speed rush hour traffic. Not for me.

I am continually checking the map before I ride looking for the routes that are less travelled.

My wife worries about it but so far its been incident free but I have to ensure I stay alert.

For cycling it's been found that the number of serious 2 vehicle accidents is pretty much static with respect to how many bikes are on the road. If you double the number of bikes the driver awareness goes up because they are used to seeing them, halving the accident rate per bike.

The message here is the best thing you can do to make yourself safer is to get more people onto two wheels.

As Sydney gets busier and people get crankier we get idiots who lose their shit when a bike filters past them. They try to cut you off and sometimes abuse you. I just look at them calmly without reacting and make a point of getting in front of them and then disappear into the traffic ahead of them. Hopefully this makes them realise that me passing them has no effect on their travel time at all.

Oh, forgot:

Kind of an obvious safety factor is speed. Or lack of excess speed.

In rural setting mostly not to loose control of your own vehicle and to be able to dodge deers, tracktors and what not.

In city traffic even more so, because even minor drop in speed gives you valuable time to both observe and react.

Probably thousands of articles about this, but it is always good to realize how little time speeding saves. You all know those bikes/cars/bicycles that have rushed past you just to be waiting at the next traffic lights.


Can't remember whether it was Hunter S. Thomson, or someone else, who wrote something like that your car is under proper control when you can have a glass of bourbon(?) on the top of the dashboard and not to spill a drop - perhaps not a quote to be accepted for educational purposes, but there is a seed of wisdom

If this was indeed Hunter, many of you know his reputation with cars: drives like a maniac, but a skillful and steady-handed maniac. Makes your own moves easier to anticipate for other vehicles and thus lessens their 'erratic behaviour'.

I have no problem riding the scooter through busy urban areas, ride with the flow and stay out of blind spots.
As for ridding a bicycle in this valley I find it dangerous and challenging I think it's because there are so few riders not like the Santa Clara Valley where I put thousands of miles in with very few incidents. Here in this valley almost every ride I take something comes up where it makes me think twice about riding a bicycle on the streets.

I've ridden in Melbourne when we stayed in an apartment with a view of the Queen Victoria Market. Interesting town to ride or drive in for that matter with different turn lanes. People there seem well aware of motorcycles and scooters which makes it safer than places like Houston despite people being able to ride year round.

To me urban vs suburban vs dual riding all have their risks. In the city and burbs it is people not paying attention to what is going on around them but they are a lot more predictable than deer.

Key in all situations is staying alert. In the city you are far safer as others said riding in traffic on a scooter or motorcycle than a bicycle as you can be in and keep up with traffic.

This has become an issue after my injuries. I live in an urban area. Not like NYC but we have half a million idiots out there. I'm going to try to stay away from rush hour traffic. I can do that because I don't work. Also early hours in the morning cast a shadow of the skyscrapers on the pavement. This is especially true in late fall. So I'm going to try to stay away from downtown early morning when the sun's coming up from the south.

I prefer riding in large urban areas, even though I dislike the experience. Would I like to be riding on smooth roads where one can maintain a steady speed? The answer is yes, but I am sure that after a while I would get bored.
Living in NYC and riding to commute, I'd say that for me riding in the city as much as it is not fun it is still exciting in that one is vigilant and aware of ones surroundings and paying attention a lot of it sub consciously.
I don't know if I would enjoy riding in the suburbs or in a small town, though getting out and being in open spaces would be a pleasant escape.
In general to get out of NYC into a more quieter riding environment it takes about 1.5-2 hours depending on the traffic, not that you re covering a lot of distance in that time, it is about 50 miles to get to quieter spaces.
I would say for me occasional access to those quieter spaces is ok but I don't think I would trade riding in NYC or other large urban centers for that matter anytime soon.

I regularly ride in commuter traffic and range from the 80kmh road outside our house through a short section of 110kmh expressway back to 80kmh 2 lane in each direction clogged traffic. Lane splitting is allowed if used sensibly so I try to keep my speed 10 - 15kmh above stopped/slow moving traffic through to merging with the traffic once it is running at any reasonable pace. Filtering to the front at the lights helps as then there's time to get ahead of the traffic and travel in the middle of my lane.
I wear a hi viz jacket and light coloured helmet, and assume nobody can see me. As such, I acknowledge anyone who moves over in their slow moving lane to let me through.

I am having second thoughts about my NYC commuting after dropping my Beo a month ago. I'm still recovering from ankle and shoulder injuries that I hoped would heal on their own but that I think require more professional attention.

Broad daylight, 9am, 50°, West Side highway in front of the Intrepid, maybe 25mph, I've done 15k miles on this exact commute over the past three years and have generally felt that the dense traffic and frequent traffic lights and cameras made for a straightforward ride. I am hypervigilant about staying outside of cars' blind spots but of course that is not always possible in traffic.

In this instance I was in the right hand lane passing through an intersection when a rattletrap car in the left lane abruptly pulled into my lane. I don't have a clear memory as to exactly what happened but I hit the horn, braked hard, and went down on my right side, not striking the car, which didn't stop. Traffic behind me stopped, and then went around me, and I think somebody got out of their car and helped me lift the scooter back up (420 lbs). I was shaken and pissed off, hurting in a few places, but didn't think I was much more than bruised.

I was dressed reasonably well except for knee protection so I got a badly skinned knee, now essentially healed, but my booted ankle and "armor"-covered shoulder are still not right. I expect the ankle is sprained and the shoulder rotator cuff will be in need of some kind of service. The scooter sustained minor scrapes and needs a replacement right side front turn signal assembly, which I have in hand.

The question is: is NYC commuting worth it? (I too commute about 25 miles each way when I'm working in NY.) It certainly was during the pandemic when traffic was light. But in retrospect there have been a lot of signs in the last year or so, as others have mentioned, that the disregard for law and order that has crept into day-to-day NYC living has found its way into the streets too. The level of pot smoke on the road, unquestionably coming from cars, is appalling. I had visitors from the Netherlands a few weeks ago complaining that the stench on the sidewalks was more pervasive than that in Amsterdam. Wow. There is a lot of information in that observation. Also appalling: the number of phony paper plates in use - no way have so many old cars been recently purchased from Texas and Georgia and brought up north. These are almost certainly toll and red light camera evaders but fake plates also help escape culpability for all other vehicular malfeasance. And I haven't seen police patrolling major highways during rush hour in years. (Nor, to be fair, have I ever seen any sign of the police dragnets checking documents for all passing two-wheelers that people have complained about in the past. I have never had a police encounter on two wheels.)

The incentives for scofflaws, the existence of impaired drivers, and the lack of enforcement may have had nothing to do with my situation. But they, coupled with these anecdotes from fellow urban MVers really make me question the commuting tradeoff going forward.

Amateriat, I wish you the speediest recovery possible and want to see you right back up on a musically-named Vespa by spring. But I cannot help but observe on a personal basis that this growing constellation of data points across many of us longer-haul urban scooter commuters does not bode well.

I get what ya said. I think lack of enforcement is part of the problem.
Enforcement is lax but it is like the cops will say if you say we have to do our job a certain way, we are not going to do it that way and then they go about not enforcing the rules/laws. The game plan being that we the public will get frustrated and then accept their terms. It is a vicious cycle.
I haven't seen NYPD pulling people over for not using their turn signals, don't see them giving tickets for making illegal U turns across double yellow lines. I don't see them enforcing the rules around e-bikes and scooters that are unregistered. It is like the collusion amongst the power be is amazing.
My guess is eventually the masses shall wakeup and demand changes or else we shall slowly end up in an anarchy.

You bring up a whole different element: the abject chaos the scofflaw e-bike riders bring to the streets creates hatred of all two-wheelers from pedestrians and drivers, and contributes to the culture of street lawlessness.

I have a lot of the same thoughts about the state of affairs in New York City. The city has gone through some really unpleasant changes. I do see the changes in other places, such as more aggressiveness, but nothing seems as drastic as here.

This place certainly feels unsafer for riding to me, compared to some years back.

I think it's completely safe to ride in big cities if you follow all the traffic rules and your and your ride's safety. I lived in California and its complete fin

I live near Phoenix, AZ, and feel it is extremely dangerous. I have been riding on the street since 1975, starting at age 16. Things were VERY different back then. There was a lot less traffic, and we didn't have crazed speeders, wannabe nascar racers, and distracted drivers. Drivers used to be a lot more competent. I have been riding for 46 years, on over 50 different bikes, in 37 states, and parts of Canada and Mexico, have ridden almost a million miles, and have never been involved in an accident on a bike, scooter or motorcycle. Things have definitely gotten a LOT worse over the past 20 years. They used to be a lot better in Canada and Mexico than the U.S. I haven't done a lot of long distance riding since becoming disabled about 10 years ago, but I've heard it is pretty bad everywhere, at least in the U.S. My biggest fear is getting hit from behind. I have been rear ended while driving cars three times during the past ten years. Two times were at night. I no longer ride at night. All three times the idiots that hit me were going well over the speed limit and not paying any attention to what was in front of them. If they didn't see a car, they certainly wouldn't see a motorcycle or scooter. And all three times, had I been on a bike, I probably wouldn't still be here. Vehicle operators (I don't feel they deserve to be called drivers) break every traffic law in the book with impunity, and the police do nothing. I constantly watch my mirrors and look for escape routes. You have to be hyper aware of everything around you, and in fact actually expect everybody out there in a 4 wheeled vehicle to TRY and run over you. Whether they are actually trying to or not doesn't really make any difference, the end result is the same. I've had combat veterans who ride tell me that riding a bike in traffic is about the same as being in combat. Every four wheeled vehicle operator is your enemy, and you are seriously outnumbered.

This doesn't just apply to riding IN traffic. Every year several bicyclists are seriously injured or killed while riding in bicycle lanes in the Phoenix area, where motor vehicles are not supposed to be. Road rage is a big thing around here, and operators of 4 wheeled vehicles just can't seem to deal with someone passing them. Back 20+ years ago, when I used to ride a bicycle, when there was a red light ahead and traffic was backed up, I would ride right past them in the bicycle lane. They didn't like that. I was threatened several times, and had things thrown at me.


AZ recently passed a law allowing anyone on a motorcycle or scooter to ride between lanes of traffic if they were stopped at a light. Almost immediately afterward there were several road rage incidents because of this. Cars moving over to block anyone trying to pass them, things being thrown at them, vehicle operators sticking things out their car windows in front of them, etc. So far no one has been killed, that I know of, but it's just a matter of time. I won't do it, after the experiences I've had on bicycles and 50cc scooters. I pull up behind the vehicle in front of me, to the far left, and watch my mirrors. If I think someone is coming up too fast, I can quickly pull in between the two vehicles ahead of me. I always ride in the right lane unless I need to be in the left lane to make a turn.

It's basically a war zone out there, and it doesn't just affect those riding bikes. A lot of four wheeled vehicles around here have damage to either the front or rear. They were either hit from the rear, or they hit someone from the rear. Super aggressive driving is the norm, and they have little to no fear of getting in trouble because the police just ignore it.

Who's the guy who decided 5 MPH over the speed limit is too slow. There's a road here I call the Argile Forest Speedway. If your not going 60 in a 45, you ain't keepen up.

I collect data on fatal casualties in traffic from a number of countries.
Back in 1975 in the US 207 people per million inhabitants were killed in traffic (on the spot upto within 30 days).

Compared to other countries that was not good but also not too bad back then.
Germany was at 240, same as in my own country Belgium. The Netherlands was at 170, and best in class was the UK with 114.

The most recent data I have are from 2021.
The US was then at 129, much lower, but that 129 is ridiculously high compared to other countries.
Germany is at 31, Belgium at 45, the Netherlands at 28 and the UK at 26.

All these countries saw a constant decline in fatal casualties since somewhere the mid 70-ies which still goes on. But not in the US. In the US that downward trend has stopped around 2010 and is since then again increasing. The lowest level reached was in 2014 with 102 people per million inhabitants killed in traffic.

So there is definitely something going wrong in US traffic.

I do not have the data directly at hand, but in general cities are quite safe to drive for bikes and motorcycles. Also motorways are quite safe.
The large majority of fatal accidents happen at rural roads and main roads.

I think some of that, if possibly correlated to miles/kilometers driven, could stem from the fact that mass transit is nearly non existent in most of the United States. Individual transportation is far riskier than mass transit.

My question to you: is it just deaths per million capita, or does this also take other factors into account?

European roads are much safer, no doubt. For a variety of reasons including better driver education, stricter equipment laws and enforcement, better road conditions and also a more accessible and more equitable healthcare system that guarantees better outcomes in the event of near fatal accident.

Hmmm....I strongly suspect I would not enjoy riding over there. Nor survive. My riding looks typically something like this

Part of the problem is the large number of people driving without valid licenses. Many undocumented immigrants buy cars and entire families and friends drive them with only one person actually licensed. My husband was rear ended at a traffic light by a woman driving a car registered in her husbands name. No license and she was explicitly named as an excluded driver on the car's insurance policy. There were 3 adults and 4 children on the car, no car seats as mandated for 3 of the children.

A friend was killed by an undocumented man from Central American who was driving drunk after a fight with his wife. His two kids under the age of 8 were in the car when he hit our friend going over 100mph. Send another woman to the hospital and hit another 7 cars. Sure these are only antidotal but I was there at my husbands and attended the friend's funeral and followed the court proceedings.

Also as asked earlier is it per x number of drivers or per mile/km driven as in much of the U.S. there is zero Public transit. While there is a local transit system where we live in Knoxville population 191,000 there is no train service and only one daily Grayhound bus per day to the nearest large city (Nashville). That is despite the University of Tennessee (32,000 students) being located here. Can you image a city of that size in Europe or UK without train or at least multiple intercity busses a day running?

Out of curiosity I searched how to get to the University of Tennessee Medical Center where my doctor is located by public transit and discovered that there is no public transit available from without walking 3.6 miles to the closest bus stop. Then it is 1:19 to 1:38 minutes depending on time of day. To drive or ride it is 11 miles and 22 minutes.

There's a push again in our state to get licenses to undocumented people. Seems like a good idea in the sense that we can be sure they're trained, and insured. Seems like a good start, especially in that at least in my area there are a ton of dairy industry workers that aren't documented, yet essential to keeping farms alive. Until we fix things with immigration we need to make the best of things....

I was at an intersection once and two cars crashed right in the middle of it and immediately both drivers got out, didn't even look at each other, and ran off in different directions leaving the cars right where they sat. Something tells me they didn't have licenses...

California gives drivers licenses to undocumented people and have for a decade. They still have the same issues. One person in a household gets a license and they "share it". Many simply won't get one because they have to provide proof of name, residency, pass written and road tests and other requirements they are afraid immigration might use against them.

I've ridden in Manhattan, Buenos Aires, Lima and a host of other cities, and drivers aren't better or worse in one than the other. The biggest issue I see with far too many riders is that they ride like they are in a car and try to maintain car size spaces around them, then panic when a car is a foot away. One advantage of a motorcycle is the small size. And you're usually quicker than most cars. You can get over enough so the idiot that changes into your lane doesn't hit you, without going into the next lane over.. Another issue is that riders aren't willing to go with the flow, and move out of the way when someone does something stupid. "I have the right of way," doesn't mean anything against a suburban. If you ride through an intersection and don't expect the person going the opposite direction to do something stupid like turn left in front of you, it's going to catch up with you sooner or later. Cars come over on bikes all the time. You don't expect it because it doesn't happen in the car, and you expect to have a car's amount of space around you. If someone moves over into your lane without signaling, you can move over to the edge of the lane and not get hit by the car the next lane over, but most riders will go all the way over into the next lane, or completely off the road, because that's what they need to do in the car.
I compare it to walking on a board that is a foot wide. On the ground, it's easy. Put it a hundred feet in the air, and that board got really narrow. But nothing really changed, except that when it was on the ground, you didn't worry about falling off. Riding in traffic is like that. If you need to be six feet away from every car in traffic to feel safe, you're going to spend way too much time worrying about what might happen and less time flowing through traffic.

^^^^
In a nutshell.

It was very noticeable on the VCdM trips that the American riders weren't that comfortable with the perceived lack of personal space around them on European roads.

I never had a car licence and learned to ride in the middle of Melbourne (5 mil people). Took quite a while to get comfortable with the chaos and all those big tin cans racing along the roads beside me. And we got trams

Now I swear in my helmet all too often when people try to kill me. Most recent: yesterday. Most common is suvs who don't think I deserve my own lane.

It's just part and parcel of living in the city.