Get Out A Map And A Pencil

Find your house and draw a circle round it at a distance of 20 kilometres. See what places in that circle you regularly go to. Shops? Work? Cinema? Pub? Library? School? Rellies? You'd be surprised how much is in your little circle. Pretty much my whole metro circle of experience fits in there. I travel throughout it in my little car every week, paying quite a little price in petrol every month. I'll bet you're the same, and if your car is bigger than mine, your petrol bill is proportionately larger. I have started drilling for oil in my back yard but so far the hole is dry. Wouldn't it be nice if that petrol cost was turned off? If I was confident of my ability to steer a motor scooter, I think it could be. The Fonz electric scooter I saw in Wanderlust shop in Murray Street would be the tap that did it. It's not cheap in itself, but the fact hat it charges from the mains at home , and you get to use if repeatedly every day, means that there is a favourable equation brewing somewhere there. The sign promises 50Km range - hence my 20 km out-and-back scenario - and mentions 50 kph as top speed, so I'd need to keep myself off the freeways. But there are normal roads from here to any number of places I go, and they're paved, too. As long as I was not trying to haul a boot-load of groceries or lumber from Bunnings this sort of transport might well make sense. If course you'd need your wits about you, and winter might be a bit fraught, but people have been riding motor scooters for the last 70 years. This one has the advantage that you are not sitting by the side of the street trying to kick-start a two-stroke motor. No fumes, no Tuk-Tuk through the neighbourhood, and your knees shielded from the wind. Proper brakes, proper lights, and a big battery in the middle of the thing that you hook up to a charger in your garage or back yard. What's not to like? PS: the FONZ advert on the net says they are Australian-made and that the scooter can get to 85 kph.