New scooter registrations jumped by 29.8% in August, potentially due to a huge rise in rail fares for commuting. Potentially good news that more people are getting on two wheels, although also a handy warning that riding through London will now involve dodging more barely competent scooterists trying to also text on their phone and balance their shopping on their laps.
Richard Davies of Peugeot Scooters reports that sales in Greater London have trebled so far this year; “Over the past couple of years Peugeot have introduced several new 50cc and 125cc scooters aimed specifically at customers looking for affordable everyday transport and as a direct result our sales in general are up 75% and in the London area we’re looking at a 211% increase.”
In addition to alerting us to the rise of scooters in London, Peugeot have also been terribly kind in pointing out that you can get a new 125cc Vivacity for £2099, with tax £16 for the year, and if you’ve got the UK average of an 8.5 mile commute, you’ll use just a gallon of fuel each week.
This can only be a good thing as long as the rise in scooters doesn’t run alongside a rise in car traffic as well.
I’ve just decided to ditch public transport an ride in to work as the costs of train and bus have shot past the running costs of a bike, plus there’s the fact that I’ll save about an hour and a half a day in travel time.
I just really hope that the time I’m supposed to start saving isn’t off-set by an increase in the number of people with an inability to filter properly