Popularity
Motor scooters are popular in most parts of the first world, Europe (particularly Italy and the Mediterranean), Japan and Taiwan, but not the US. They are even more popular in most parts of the developing world, particularly in countries such as India, Vietnam and China where there is local manufacture. Parking, storage, and traffic issues in crowded cities, along with the easy driving position make them a popular form of urban transportation. In many nations, scooter (or other small motorcycle) sales exceed those of automobiles, and a motor scooter may even be the family transport.
In Taiwan, road infrastructure has been built specifically with two wheelers in mind, with separate lanes and intersection turn boxes. In Thailand, scooters are used for street to door taxi services, as well as for navigating through heavy traffic. The extensive range of cycle tracks in the Netherlands extends into parts of Belgium and Germany and is open to all small powered two-wheelers. Motor scooters are popular because of their size, fuel-efficiency, weight, and typically larger storage room than a motorcycle. In many localities, certain road motor scooters are considered by law to be in the same class as mopeds or small motorcycles and therefore they have fewer restrictions than do larger motorcycles.
According to the Motorcycle Industry Council, sales of motor scooters in the United States have more than doubled since 2000. The motorcycle industry as a whole has seen 13 years of consecutive growth. According to council figures, 42,000 scooters were sold in 2000. By 2004, that number increased to 97,000. Scooter sales in 2008 in the USA were up 41% on 2007, and represented 9% of all powered two-wheeler sales. However, falling oil prices after a boom in 2008, led to a decrease in US scooter sales in 2009 of 59% against 2008, compared with a 41% fall for all powered two-wheelers, while the scooter's contribution to total US powered two-wheeler sales in 2009 fell to 6%. After a two year slump, scooter sales in the US rebounded in the first quarter of 2011, once again due to higher gas prices.
Read more about this topic: Motor Scooters
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He was fixed in the house of lords, that hospital of incurables, and his retreat to popularity was cut off; for the confidence of the public, when once great and once lost, is never to be regained.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)