Global Fuel Price Hike : As gas prices bite, Americans go Roman and eye up Vespas

For the longest time, big has been beautiful in America, at least in terms of cars. But as petrol prices bite into American pocketbooks, US motorists are ending their love affair with the "Yank tank", and many are considering the ultimate step in downsizing: losing two wheels and riding a scooter.

"Americans love cars, especially big cars, and for them to decide to use something different has not been an easy decision," Paolo Timoni, chief executive of Piaggio Group Americas, producer of the classic Italian Vespa and Piaggio scooters that crowd roundabouts from Rome to Naples, told AFP.

"But it appears that gas prices at four dollars a gallon have been a tilting point that has pushed people toward making the change," Timoni added.

Scooter sales ballooned more than ten-fold in the United States between 1997 and last year, climbing from 12,000 to 131,000.

The median price for petrol -- the point where half the prices are above and half below -- in 1997 was around 1.18 dollars.

In mid-June of this year, a gallon of gasoline cost 4.08 dollars, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

In the first quarter of this year, scooter sales grew by 24 percent compared with the same period last year, Mike Mount of the Motorcycle Industry Council said.

"We think that fuel prices have weighed in on some people's decisions to purchase two-wheeled transportation," Mount said.

In May, a monthly record 2,758 Piaggios were sold in the United States and a Piaggio officials forecast that June sales would vastly exceed that record, meaning that sales for those two months would be equal to nearly half of sales in 1997.

"The days of inexpensive gasoline appear to be over," Bob Chase, who set out last month with a scooter-loving friend to ride two Piaggios across the United States, told AFP.

"People are getting out of their big vehicles and getting into more economical modes of transportation," 72-year-old Chase said.

"I live in the San Francisco area. I have a Piaggio MP3-50 at home in my garage and I ride it everywhere I can. I get over 70 miles per gallon on the highway; it'll go 78 miles per hour, and, yes, I take it on the California freeways," he said.

The rise of the scooter has lent a European flair to many US cities, Chase's riding partner, Buddy Rosenbaum, 71, said.

"I'm from New York, and it's remarkable to me how New York is coming to look like Rome: there are Vespas everywhere," Rosenbaum said.

"I only use my car when it's an absolute necessity -- usually when the wife wants to come along," he added.
The scooter began to take wing on this side of the ocean in 2000 and many Americans embraced it as a mode of transport, not just a trendy vehicle that makes you look like an extra in a video for Italian pop singer Eros Ramazzoti.

"The same driving conditions that exist in Europe, where millions of people commute on scooters every day -- high gas prices and terrible traffic congestion -- are becoming a reality in the United States," Timoni explained.

Scooter commuters can dart in between cars and avoid road jams, but riding a scooter requires a new mindset and isn't for everyone, said Dean Thompson, spokesman of the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF), which oversees and runs rider education courses throughout the United States.

"If you're accident-prone, you should perhaps rethink if a scooter or motorbike is the best mode of transport for you," Thompson said.

"People think: I can do this, it's like a bicycle. It's not. You're in the traffic stream mixing it with cars, pedestrians, bicycles, motorcycles, buses," he said.

"You're not in a metal cage surrounded by 4,000 pounds (2,000 kilos) of metal."