More Scooter News

As you know, I have an e-bike/scooter whatever you want to call it. I ride it back-n-forth to work just about every day, it’s about a 30 minute ride to go the 14.5 km to the office. As I have taken this trip more and more, I begin to understand some of the driving habits of the locals (don’t misconstrue this as thinking it’s okay, I just understand more).

Just to review, the bike lanes they have here have lights at the intersections just like for cars. There is a straight ahead arrow and a left turn arrow (I guess you are free to turn right whenever which makes sense). When the arrows are red, don’t proceed (unless you decide you want to proceed), at least that is the “rule”. Some abide by the rules but many do not, they kind of coast on through an intersection but they do try to ensure that nothing is coming when they do. However, there is an interesting dynamic that some drivers pay the same attention as the bike riders. The left turn light is on for the cars in the intersection, so the e-bike left turn light is also on. Some drivers will go straight through the intersection after “faking” the left turn. They will go into the left turn lane and then veer back into the other lane and through the intersection they go, so you still need to be on guard for the “lane changers”. I wondered why they would not stop and wait for the light and I think I have the answer. Several weeks back, I thought I had charged my battery but it turns out that I did not have it charged nearly as well as I thought. A little background into riding on a battery to try and help with the understanding for this situation. We have a battery meter on the “console” of the scooter. The battery drains much more when you are starting from a stop position and doesn’t drain nearly as fast when you are riding at a constant speed. So, since my battery power was low, when I stopped and then hit the gas to get moving, it was a very slow start (I could’ve crawled at a faster speed) and the battery power dropped quite a bit each time I stopped and started again. When I talk about starting slow, it takes nearly the whole intersection before you get to any kind of good speed. So, if you are used to hitting the gas and getting through the intersection quickly, it ain’t happening. Because you are so much slower, you need to really pay more attention since you don’t have the option to zoom across the intersection and the car coming up quickly is now going to be a bigger problem because you can’t get across fast enough. So, the battery drains faster if you stop. The battery also drains faster if you run at top speed all the time. So, combine these two facts and I understand why they don’t want to stop at the lights. It could be a matter of making it to work on a charge; pushing your scooter the last couple of blocks to work or being late to work. So once they hit speed, they are loathe to change since it will create more issues with the battery. I made it to work but the battery power was less than 50% when I got to work and even when I tried to run at top speed, the top speed with the low battery power was around 30-35 kph versus my normal 40-45 kph. It may not sound like much but it really makes a difference.

Second note, riding in the rain. Yes, I have done it. The Chinese have these ponchos that drape across the front of the scooter and over them (kind of a tent from the front of the scooter). It looks weird and I don’t really like the poncho thing so I don’t have one. I have a good rain jacket that I can wear in the rain. My legs don’t get too wet until you actually stop. Now on my rain jacket is a hood so I should have enough protection. However, I learned a lesson about the ponchos, they cover your legs and everything else so while you have this on, you really can’t get wet except in the face and on your hands. The rain jacket worked okay until I stopped and my legs would start to get wet. Also, any water that might run down the jacket and pool anywhere drops on the legs so I may stay relatively dry while riding, the legs get wet every time I stop (another reason not to stop). The other problem is the hood. It’s tough to turn your head with the hood on and see anything going on around you, in fact it is almost impossible. So this is why they don’t look, they keep on going. Looking to the left and right doesn’t work because the hood doesn’t allow you to turn you head and see anything. On the one hand, riding in the rain reminds me of my childhood where getting wet didn’t really matter (until you reached the house…”you’re not coming in with those wet clothes”). On the other hand, I’m not young anymore so getting wet isn’t a lot of fun. A little rain isn’t so bad but when it starts to downpour, it becomes a problem. Friday coming home I passed a local by riding through a large puddle and “accidently” splashed him from the spray of the bike (it wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t decide to force me to ride so wide of him due to his weaving and bobbing). I didn’t realize I would kick up that much water, “Aiya!!!’ Is what he said when I gave him a quick dose of water, I looked back and waved and indicated I was sorry. I really was but if he had stayed in a straight line I wouldn’t have been forced to ride through the deep puddle. The lack of windshield wipers on my glasses doesn’t help either. Coming home, not a problem. I can get changed into dry clothes but riding to work in the rain is an issue since I don’t carry a change of clothes with me. So far, I’ve been lucky and haven’t gotten rained on (hard) going to work but my luck will probably run out soon. I always have the option of riding the bus into work so when the weather looks bad, I can bypass the scooter. I have that option, something that the locals may not have.

Riding at night, this week I had to stay late and drive in the dark. Although the street lights are everywhere and the city is pretty well lit, I still didn’t really trust riding in the dark very much. While in the US, I bought one of those reflective vests to wear for just such a scenario (the prices here were crazy high for these vests). The scooter I have has lights, blinkers and all of that but I still wasn’t really all that enthused about riding at night (I also purchase reflective tape at home and put it on the scooter a couple of weeks back). But, I really had little option so I put on the vest, turned on the lights and headed home. The headlight wasn’t much to speak of. It really put out very little in the way of a light to see much but with the streetlights, it wasn’t so bad. Keep in mind that the bike lanes have trees on both sides to give it kind of a natural roof but those trees also cut down on the amount of light in the lane. It wasn’t too bad, I was careful at the intersections and was taking my time. Then, the lights went out! Seriously, many of the lights stay on until a certain time of night and then go out so the illumination I had was greatly diminished. I knew I was in the bike lane and I was headed in the right direction but I could not see any potholes or anything else in my way. I also had to watch out for the locals because they don’t turn on their lights. They depend on the street lights to help them along (remember what I said about the batteries, the lights also drain the batteries so they keep them off). Even with the newer e-bikes, they ride without turning them on so I’m at least giving a warning to people coming at me but I have limited warning of them. It’s so stupid. Then I’ve got some of the Chinese that I pass that want to flick on and off their lights on their scooter. I wasn’t really clear as to what they were doing until the next intersection where one couple passed me for a moment and then I passed them. He flicked his lights again at me and I realized he wanted to see the reflection from my vest (ugh!). I may be wrong but it seemed that is exactly what he was doing. I made it home in one piece but riding at night adds to the “pucker factor” a little more. There’s less congestion in the bike lane but when you can’t see what is ahead of you, it’s very disconcerting.

Last piece of news. Last month, it seemed that the local government was on a crackdown against the scooter riders. At many of the major intersections around town, they had people in uniforms with red flags. These “red flag people (RFP)” would stop the scooter riders at the white line on the pavement that indicated where they should stop and wait for the light to change. They would also point to people riding with two on a scooter and indicate one had to dismount. The RFP were like traffic cops but without the badge. I can only assume that they were there to try and re-educate the scooter drivers that when the red arrow was on for the scooter lane, it meant stop and wait. Typically, even if they stopped (and there was no guarantee of that) they would continue past the white line until they were out into the turning lane or worse. Cars turning right would have to take the wide turn to avoid them or they would turn between them and the white stop line since there was plenty of space. The worst past was that once someone went past, it became a free-for-all, everyone started to creep through the intersection. It always has worked like this. If one person goes, another follows and so on until the light actually turns green. Anyhow, back to the story, the RFP were there to enforce the rules and would blow their whistles at people that violated the rules. I even saw actual cops come over the “assist” in enforcing the rules. If you creeped over the white line, they would ask you to move aside and “talk” to you. It was an interesting dynamic. Scooters with two people had one get off, the driver would proceed through the intersection and wait on the other side. His passenger would walk across the street, hop on and off they would go to until the next RFP caught them. This went on for several weeks. The problem was that although they were enforcing the rules, it created a HUGE logjam of scooters at intersections and when the dam burst, it was pure chaos. People trying to weave and bob around with nowhere to go. It was actually more dangerous and made life a whole lot more miserable as we would wait at the intersection. While you waited, if you left a crack between you and any of the scooters around you, someone had to try and squeeze through to get just a little further. Nevermind that he had a very slow scooter and would hold up everyone else when the “restart” flag was dropped. It really made for a much rougher ride. Then, all of a sudden, it was over. No more RFP anywhere and things pretty much went back to normal. It was so weird. I guess the hope was that people would learn and adopt a new method to riding but it didn’t really happen that way. Most of the traffic still flows the same in the scooter lane but some have learned to stop when the red light is on. Unfortunately, they decide to stop right in the darned middle of the lane rather than off to the side.

Overall, I like the scooter a lot but it’s a love-hate relationship. I love the scooter but I hate having to ride it because there really is no etiquette or rules as far as how you ride or how you should ride with people around you. I’ve had some close calls, with the closest being a lady that swerved into me as I passed her and our handle bars hit. The tractor trailer that decided to blow through the light (he at least hit his horn to give me the warning I needed to put on the brakes) and the car that took a right hand turn from two lanes over. It’s a matter of always being on guard and when the guard slips, that’s when you get into trouble. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat all rolled into one.