Breathing Easier in New Delhi

We're used to the pictures of pollution in Beijing where masked people can barely see their way through the streets. But the situation in the Indian capital is far worse, three times worse. It's air is now the most polluted in the world.

So, in New Delhi, on New Year's day they started a two-week experiment, keeping cars off the road on an every-other-day basis to combat air pollution. There are several exemptions to the rule including two-wheeled vehicles. Some say  motorcycles and scooters weren't included even though older two-stroke scooters have been described as "super polluters," because there would be too many people for the public transit system to handle.

Now, I like to think of scooters and motorcycles as healthier choices for the environment than cars but the research proves me wrong. And  the New Delhi experiment is telling. While cars account for 22 per cent of the particulate matter in the city's air, two-wheeled vehicles account for 32 per cent, according to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment. (Trucks account for 28 per cent.) But the number that's most startling is that public buses only account for 4 per cent of the particulate manner.

I'm a fan of two-wheelers but it's hard not to argue that buses - or other forms of public transit - make the best choice for the environment in congested cities like New Delhi. And that poorly maintained old technology gas-powered scooters and motorcycles are as much as a problem as cars. China has already restricted their use giving a boom to the development of electric vehicles. Maybe it's time India consider the same measures.

One entrepreneur at least, a woman, is ready. She's introducing electric scooters to the commuter market.

Seeing the Road Both Ways

Riding a motorcycle or a scooter demands attention. When I took a training course, the instructors told us to check our mirrors every five seconds. For me, I found it valuable training for driving a car too; when I'm on the highway I'm always trying to update the pictures of the cars around me: which car is moving too fast in the far lane and could cut across from me, whether the car behind me is too close and likely to plough into me if I have to stop quickly, which car seems likely to make a sudden lane change.

On a bike, these rapid updates become crucial so I was excited to read about a new helmet, one that makes me want to get back on my scooter. It's a solid helmet but one with a new ability.

The Skully Smart Helmet is on pre-order now and at a hefty price: $1,499 U.S. That's a lot more than the few hundred dollars for an approved, good-quality helmet that keep most riders safe. The helmet has been in the works for a while and made it to manufacturing through crowd sourcing.The Skully AR-1 uses cameras built in to the back to get a 180 degree view of the road projected on a display in front of the driver.

"We can't wait to ride with one," said Road and Track when it reviewed the prototype in 2014.

Popular Science called it a "helmet for the digital age." With internet and GPS, the helmet adds to the rider's ability to know what's coming on the road.

If I keep riding, I'll need a new helmet next year. But, although the Skully sounds like a blast, I won't be buying one. If I were a racer, however, or someone who traveled across North America on a bike, I'd definitely consider one. A helmet that could save your life in more ways than one seems like gold.

Other helmet companies are working hard to catch up so smart helmets could become more competitively priced. But the Skully remains ahead of the crowd. I tried to open links to one company that was working on a smart element but their sites no longer exist. Road-tested competitors may be awhile. If you're a seriously rider and a fan of technology and Iron Man I don't see how you can't be tempted now.

Photos from Skully Helmet website

Goodbye to Scooters?

It may be time. I'm not getting any younger and I now live in a place where I like to ride my bicycle along riverside bike paths and where I need to drive my car to get groceries because stores are a ways away and we stock up when we go.

My scooter spends most days in the garage. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ridden it this summer. Just enough to keep the battery charged. I do enjoy riding it on country roads but I have always liked having a purpose for my scooter whether it was for commuting or running errands. But I work at home now; don't go to the shops near me.

Anyone who follows this blog or has hit upon it and scanned the archives knows I haven't been writing about scooters as often as I once did. So I'm wondering if I should give up both the blog and the scooter.

I had to buy my licence for the scooter recently and I suppose it was some sort of commitment to decide to pay for two years instead of one. This may be a lull, I tell myself. Perhaps I will begin a new endeavour where the scooter again makes sense, I say. And I'm still fascinated with the transformative powers of scooters in so many countries in the world, particularly for women. And still excited about its possibility for cleaner air and less congested traffic.

So I'm not quite ready to throw away the keys, keep my fingers off the keyboard completely. But consider this blog on hiatus 'til I find my way with my scooter again.

A Split Personality

Now this is a cool idea. It`s an electric car you could use to ride into the city with a spouse or friend. The difference is that when you get there and have to go your separate ways, voila, you separate the car into two motorcycles.

It`s called the Lane Splitter. And it was envisioned in a brainstorming session at argodesign in Texas after a guy named Mark Wilson of Fast Company came to them with a rough idea he`d used as a concept in a video series Creative Director for the Day. He wanted to come up with real design he could take to the New York Auto Show.

Don`t expect to see the Lane Splitter on the roads any time soon. It`s still a concept with a lot of technical problems to be solved such as how the two motorcycles would be securely coupled and how a motorcycle with one flat side and one curved side would perform to name two.  But it`s fun to imagine the freedom it would offer. And, hey, all innovations have to start somewhere.

Photos: argodesign

Bravo Melbourne!

Driving through the centre of Toronto these days is maddenly slow. With lanes reduced on the Gardiner Expressway, which crosses the south end of the city, and heavy congestion elsewhere getting from east to west in the city can take three times longer than it did just a few years ago. And the longer a car - more often than not with one occupant - sits in traffic, idling and moving slower than the highway laws allows, the more C02 emissions it pours into the atmosphere.

This in a city that has been making it harder for scooters and motorcycles to find a place to park downtown.

So Bravo Melbourne. The Australian city has come up with a Motorcycle Plan for 2015-2018 to give special treatment to scooters and motorcycles to encourage more commuters to ride two-wheeled vehicles into the city.

The draft plan calls for an expansion in free parking for scooters and motorcycles throughout the municipality as well as requirements for private buildings to create extra spaces as well.

It also addresses concerns of safety.Twenty per cent of Melbourne's traffic accidents in 2013 involved scooters and motorcycles, a far higher percentage than the number on the roads. The plan calls for all levels of governments to rethink hazards like posts and sharp metal barriers and come up with new safer street designs.

Why is the city doing all this? Because its council believes that getting more two-wheeled vehicles on the streets will reduce travel times and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. It cites a European study that showed that if 10 per cent of private cars were replaced by motorcycles, the commute decreases by almost half.

The plan still has to pass a vote. If it does, here's hoping Toronto and other North American cities take note.

Where Are All the Women?

Recently I traveled to Argentina, and, as I can't help but do now, tried to get a sense of the culture of two-wheelers in another country. Two-wheels versus cars, motorcycles versus scooters, city versus country, female riders versus male riders...that sort of thing.

It's never a scientific survey, more of an impression, one made this time while sitting in the parks and cafes in Buenos Aires and being out on the road in other parts of the country. There were plenty of two-wheeled vehicles - why not in a country with a climate that allows for a long riding season? And there seemed to be a mix of scooters and motorcycles on city streets that was difficult to quantify.

What did strike me was the wide spread between the number of female riders and the number of men.

This is a country with a female president, although one under constant assault for wrongdoing, mind you. This is the country that turned Eve Peron into dear Evita, a saint to many with her own fawning museum. This is a country with women who look comfortable in their own skin visible in the workforce and on the streets.

I did see one woman on a mod-looking scooter with a flowing skirt and others on motorcycles and more practical-looking scooters. But I'd say nine times out of time the riders who whizzed by me were male, sometimes with a woman sitting behind them.

It was a surprise to me. In Vietnam, North America, throughout Europe and even in India, from my experience, the spread is much closer. And I could only conclude that the famous Latin American machismo is alive and well in Argentina when it comes to traditionally male activities like riding two-wheeled vehicles.

Electric Prospects in the UK

I'm still thinking a lot about electric scooters...as one reader pointed out to me the problems are not limited to battery charging and battery time...but to top speed as well. Manufacturers, especially in Asia, are quite capable of making electric scooters go fast, but in the west there are often legal limits to how fast they can go. More on that later but for today, I'm just including this link to a story about how incentives for going electric could be extended to scooters in the UK which in return could affect how electric scooters are produced and make manufacturers take them more seriously there.