Bryan Mac Murray got in touch with the blog and asked if he could submit an article on scooter visibility in traffic. Looking good on your scooter is fine, but safety should always come first. A lot of this will be obvious to the more experienced riders out there, and more useful to younger, learner riders. Anyway, it’s all good, so here’s his article…

Be More Visible on Your Scooter

Scooters have become a very popular form of transportation. However, scooters are much more likely to be in an accident because motorists fail notice them on the roadway. Motorcycles or scooters fall into the small category of things that aren’t always noticed or perceived even when they are right in the field of vision. To make it plain, a scooter approaching a vehicle from head-on at a distance will occupy a very small portion of a driver’s vision.

If your scooter is moving at a pretty good pace, there is a chance that the eye of the other motorists won’t look at it long enough to make the image imbed in the brain before it arrives in the immediate vicinity. You have to understand that the brain only sees things that it can actually understand, so without this visual connection to the brain for the oncoming scooter to register, the driver will unknowingly not notice the scooter and could cause an accident.

Memory and Visibility Play a Significant Role in Accidents

A study involving road safety indicated that 57% of accidents were caused by human error. It is a contributing cause in 90% of all accidents. They are the result of processing abilities that are limited, so they have to rely on three fallible mental functions – memory, perception, and attention. Between that and the occasional negligence of drivers, it’s probably best to make it clear to other drivers that you are there.

Make Your Scooter More Visible

As we have mentioned earlier, the processing abilities of the driver have an impact on their ability to recognize scooters or motorcycles and avoid collisions. The goal to making sure your scooter is going to be noticed and reduce the risk of an accident involves making your scooter more visible to drivers. There are many ways you can improve visibility to other drivers and vehicles and decrease your chances of being in an accident.

• Be careful when choosing lane position. Select the lane in which you would be most visible, then ride in the best position in that lane. Remember, this can vary depending upon your particular riding conditions and the given location.
• Deck yourself out in bright colors. Wear a helmet that is brightly colored or a jacket that makes you stand out. White, red, bright green, and yellow are much more noticeable than darker colors. At night, add reflective tape or piping to your helmet and jacket to be much more visible. All-weather reflective tape is a great touch.
• Make sure your headlights, turn signals (if fitted), tail lights, and brake lights are working properly. You should actually check them before you go riding each time. If you have lights that aren’t very bright, you could switch them out with LED or halogen equivalents. The better the illumination, the more likely you will be seen out on the road.

Other Scooter Safety Tips

When you are riding your scooter, you want to be safe. So here are some other safety tips to help you avoid being in an accident.

• Maintain control of your scooter.
• In rain and at night, use extra caution.
• Maintain safe speed.
• Wear a helmet, even if you’re not required to do so.
• Don’t ride under the influence.

You can always learn more safety techniques, and you can never be too safe when you are riding your scooter. You can never be too cautious when operating a scooter, and remember, it is your responsibility to make yourself more visible. You definitely want to err on the side of caution.

Thanks Bryan. I must say, it’s advice I follow myself, my everyday riding jacket (when the weather is cooler) is a Hi-Viz job from Australian Bikers Gear. Pretty tough, waterproof jacket with armour should the worst happen. You can grab one on Amazon for a reasonable £59 (at time of writing) here: Bikers Gear Motorcycle Avalanche Hi Viz Waterproof Jacket ArmoUr & Vented Size M (38″)

If you have an article that you think is a good fit with the Lambrettista blog, drop me a line, and I’ll check it out. This article was written by Personal Injury Help, they provide information about personal injury cases and safety hazards. To learn more, you can go to their website, or contact them at help@personal-injury-law.org. They are based in the USA.

Hi Roland, of the Pietermaritzburg Lambretta Club…If you’re reading… thanks for getting in touch, I’ve replied to your email, but it ‘bounced back’ to me as an unknown email address… could you send me another email please?

I’ll hold my hands up, I’m not any kind of expert on scooter racing, past or present. But there are some names that you can’t help recognising if you’ve got even a passing interest. One of those is Doug Miller of East London Racing. And one of his cutdowns is for sale on eBay.

It’s one of those items that probably looks like either a horde of treasure or (if you’re not in the know) a pile of junk. I’d love to see sympathetically restored – a ‘conserved restoration’ retaining the charm and patina of the years, rather than a shiny new rebuild.

If that’s a project you feel you would love to take on, here’s the eBay link.

Quick update on the ‘Being’ short film project that I’ve been posting about. With a 129 backers, they are well over halfway to the Kickstarter goal of £20,000. There’s still nearly £8k to be found, but there’s 25 days to go, so it looks doable!

There are a bunch of great rewards on offer, ranging from £2 to £5,000. The one that may appeal to Lambrettisti is an opportunity to ride your scoot in the final scene of the film for £250 (Five people have already signed up for this). Check it out on Kickstarter, here, where you can find out more about the project, or check out the website: beingthefilm.co.uk

Update update… with just 11 days to go, there’s still  over £5k to be found, so if you’re thinking about  funding this project, go for it. Remember, if the target isn’t reached you don’t pay a bean, but the project doesn’t go ahead. And don’t worry, contorary to reports on ScooterLab, Steve Berry isn’t making an appearance (as far as I know!).

With all of this electric stuff I’ve been posting over the last couple of days, you might think that I’m anti-2stroke. Far from it… I find the classic Innocenti engine almost as iconic as the bodywork – the heart of a classic Lambretta.

Check in out on eBay here

Writing this blog is a just for fun thing for me, I do it because I enjoy it. Some days I enjoy it more than others…particularly when nice people send me things*. Especially beer. Beer is good. If you want to send me beer, that’s great!

The guys from the Kel Paul Brewing Co.(a pop-up brewery based in  The Hereford Brewery, Hereford). It’s not just beer, it’s Lambretta beer. With a Lambretta logo and a Lambretta on the front. Life doesn’t get better than this. And it’s very quaffable. To quote the blurb on the bottle it’s  ‘A smooth, well hopped Pale Ale. Initial sweet bitterness gives way to a smooth finish’.

Now I’m no Michael Jackson (the beer writer, not the kiddyfiddling** ‘King of Pop’ – though I’m no him either) but I do like a pint. And this is a good one. I fancy I tasted a bit of a citrus twang to it. But that might just me being poncey. It does go very well with a Tesco’s Finest Salami Napoli  pizza. The perfect accompaniment in fact.

You order a case of 12 for a very reasonable £25 + packaging. An ideal gift for the Lambretta loving mate. Or get a couple of cases in for your next social gathering – it’s bound to be a conversation piece.  Every Lambretta lover should have a couple of bottles on standby.

Email kelpaulbrewery@gmail.com and they’ll sort you out.

*If the nice people at Scomadi want to send me one of those, I’ll write a nice, honest review about that too…

**allegedly.

A fresh new look and lots of great content on Scootering’s new website, launched today.

Still a bunch of broken links on the “Clubs” page though guys. Better off going here, if I do say so myself.