Getting Around

Stories on the move

by Erica Stratton

Cars aren’t the fun they used to be. With gridlock, gas gouging, road rage and premium-price parking, who wants to drive to work — let alone take the car out for a Sunday spin?

Motor Scooter

“Sometimes I don’t drive the truck for two or three weeks,” says Bill Moweuy from astride one of the motor scooters appearing around Annapolis in increasing numbers. (Vmoto, the Annapolis scooter provider, says sales are up over the past four years.) Today Moweuy and his friend Gary Lacik are here just to “ride around, have something to drink, watch people.”

Cheaper than a car but more than a bike, a scooter gets 100 miles a gallon. It’s small enough that you don’t need a motorcycle license to drive one. They don’t have to be insured or need license plates, but theres’s a trade off: It’s impossible to take them on the highway. Buying one will set you back less than a car — around $2,500 , with used scooters under $2,000.

Rob Fettus, rides his scooter from his houseboat every day to work to manage Buddy’s Crabs and Ribs in downtown Annapolis. By scooter, he says, “traveling is a pleasure” that he doesn’t get by car. Sometimes he has knots in his hair when he arrives at work, but he doesn’t care: “The wind in my hair is too good for a helmet.”