two types of scooter users

It seems that in todays polarised world there can only be the extreme users, however I'd like to put forward the case for Electric Scooters as being a practical daily transport which you can rely upon to quickly get you to places which while you could walk you'd be nearly tempted to take a car.

Case in Point

My local shops, its not far (about a kilometer) which if I walked there and back would be just under half an hour. Its mainly flat, so no major impediment there, but when its hot (as Australia can be)

the thought of walking up to the shops in high UV as well as high heat is of less appeal than you might think.

In contrast a quick scoot there and back (probably in not much different time to starting the car, backing it out and so on) with the air flowing past cooling one down a little (sweating is cooling) seems down right appealing.

Its a role like this that a lighter weight 500W single motor scooter (not a beast with 3,500W) makes for a simple and pleasant trip. I did just that this morning and thought I'd share with you the results and perhaps use it to discuss some aspects. This is my trip out to the shops

and you can see its pretty flat, took just over 2 minutes (including fumbling around turning the GPS off) and despite what the GPS thinks (I suspect accuracy issues with it just being started up) there wasn't a big climb at the start. Important stuff is average speed moving and average speed ... so more or less I spent most of my time at 24kmh, that's probably as fast as most people would call a brisk cycle on a bicycle (but without the sweating). Importantly I forgot to start the GPS on the way out, I was 500 meters from home

The way back was similar:

which reflects that the slight long down hill back here does makes it that little faster. Note I've selected distance there not duration because not moving does not show distance and looks weird on the duration view.

Discussion

On various forums you'll get the spakko kiddies and adventure adrenaline junkies telling you you need a 3500W monster and that scooters are safe, however with those higher speed higher power monsters falling off (going fast) can result in stuff like this:

Which brings me to why I like my Mercane Single motor 500W scooter ... its easy to ride, stable and feels safe.

Sure I could fall off it too and hurt myself as bad, hell I could slip in the supermarket too ... but the point of this post is to say this:

Not everyone needs or wants a speed demon, they might just want to get to work and get to the shops. 

Impact forces increase with a square of the speed, so while the time taken to get to the shops may be 40 seconds more, its still much faster than walking and on a scooter you're pretty much as exposed as a pedestrian ...

Best Wishes and Happy Scooting