My Beloved Honda Metropolitan Scooter Has Been Sold

It was September 5th 2005 and I was so excited — I had just purchased a 2004 Honda Metropolitan that was only slightly used with 235.5 miles on the odometer (see, My Way of Dealing with Rising Gas Prices). Today I sold the scooter with just over 9,000 miles on it. Even in the cold & rain those were some very fun miles. I didn’t want to sell the scooter, it’s just that since my stroke I could not safely ride it with only one hand on the handlebar. As more time passes and I can once again ride a scooter I will certainly buy another.
With our gas prices now at $4/gallon more people should consider a scooter. On my first scooter post (link above) I was thinking about saving on gas. The timing was just after Katrina hit New Orleans but before Rita hit Texas. Gas prices spiked to over $3/gallon for this week but they quickly fell below $3/gallon but not below $2/gallon. At the time I wrote:

I estimate that given current fuel prices every 5,000 miles I can put on the scooter rather than my car I’ll save at least $600. As fuel prices rise the savings will be even greater. In less than 3 years the scooter will pay for itself in fuel savings.

Keep in mind that at the time I had a thirsty AWD Audi. So it turns out I didn’t do 5K per year on the scooter. I do think that by thinking more locally and combining trips I did manage to save nearly that many miles each year.

A year ago I sold my car (by that point I had a more efficient Scion xA). I made it through the hot summer and most of the cold winter on the scooter (I was in the hospital during some of the worst winter weather). There were a few days in December where the snow and ice forced me to stay in, but only a few days. There was this great high from getting around town on single gallon of gas (the scooter managed 85-90mpg but only held 1.1 gallons). Each passing month without a car payment or insurance bill I knew I had made the right decision.

My current set of wheels is the ultimate in green transportation — a plug-in electric, um, wheelchair. It gets me most places I need to go — I took it on MetroLink today (it was “Dump the Pump” day so I had a free day pass). My morning started with an 8:30am meeting on Delmar in the Loop and before the trip was done I was leaving Trader Joe’s and heading back to the Eager Rd. station. Again the chair, combined with mass transit, does a great job of getting me around.

Former St. Louisan, Chris Balish, author of “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breath Easier and Get More Mileage out of Life”, was right — you can live well without owning a car! Having said that, I’m reluctantly buying a used car.

I can do my job as a REALTOR® from a scooter but not from the #70 Grand bus and a wheelchair, so a car I must purchase. And yes I’ll be able to drive. I have to get a car with an automatic transmission as I can’t rely on my left leg being able to operate a clutch. The only two modifications will be a knob on the steering wheel (so I can turn the wheel with a single hand) and a device that connects to the turn signal stalk so that I can activate the turn signals with my right hand.

Going from not owning a car to buying one when gas is $4/gal. is not good timing on my part but it was not like I planned the stroke. So I’m focusing on two of the most fuel efficient & reliable non-hybrid used cars: Honda Civic & Toyota Corolla. Buying an efficient sedan is the best I can do to hedge my bets against rising gasoline prices. That and continuing to use the wheelchair and mass transit for as many trips as possible. Plus working on my walking too. Tonight I just walked around the block (for the third night in a row).

Except for those of you that regularly ride a bike for transportation, each of you could benefit from riding a scooter. Those little trips to the grocery store are just so much more fun on a scooter. Using a scooter for shopping is great too — you tend to not buy things you don’t need because you don’t have the space to lug a bunch of crap home.

So hopefully in another year I’ll be writing about the new scooter I bought and in a couple of years I’ll be back to not owning a car. At that point hopefully the WeCar car sharing plan will have a vehicle within a few blocks of my place (all are east of Tucker at this time). In the meantime I’ll still get to see my old scooter as I sold it to a neighbor in my building.