I’m visiting Italy and floored by the number of mopeds. Found the same thing in Vietnam. Having spent time in New York, Chicago, St Louis, Seattle, Miami and lots in Orlando, I’ve never seen anything like this in the USA. Is there a cultural reason or economic reason the USA prefers motorcycles over mopeds?
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A lot of people are saying it’s because of distances etc.
That might be true but I think it’s also a cultural thing. The auto-industry and its lobby built post-war America.
In most of the US working is ample and infrastructure is geared up for cars. You can start driving from between 14 and 16 and used cars are cheap.
Mopeds and scooters solve a problem the US doesn’t have. The US has never had a domestic scooter industry, or a lack of infrastructure for cars or people willing to spend money on cars. In Italy, Vietnam and India, all of these factors play into making scooters and mopeds more popular.
Additionally, the relatively unsafety as of US roads makes being in the road in anything other than a car feel unsafe in a lot of cities in the US. Snowy winters and extreme Summers don’t help encourage cyclists or scooter riders.
Inequality and probably a lot of other factors, also mean that motorcycle theft is a major factor in a lot of Us cities. While this is true in other parts of the world, a lot of places with a moped culture do not suffer from this to the same extent.
A major point, which is more generic motorcycling than just scooters, is that filtering has historically been totally illegal in the US (except California) which removes one of the major advantages of motorcycling over taking a car for most people.
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