Saving the planet: Scootin’ for the planet

By Eric S. Caruncho, Staff Writer
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

MY 15-year-old Lancer wasn’t the most earth-friendly vehicle around, what with worn valves, blown gaskets, a rusty exhaust and myriad other ills that caused it to leave a trail of oil spots and black exhaust in its wake. How it passed its emissions tests is still a mystery to me.

Anyway, when it finally gave up the ghost (after being totaled in a car wreck), I actually heaved a sigh of relief, like the owner of a decrepit old nag that was finally put out of its misery.

The year before, I had gotten myself a scooter. It was an LML, an Indian-made clone of the famous Italian Vespa PX150, identical in nearly every respect, down to the 150cc two-stroke engine.

With the Lancer kaput, the scoot became my main ride. And while it’s not exactly a green machine (two-stroke engines are generally not as clean as the modern four-strokes), it has my old Lancer beat hands down. Not only does it consume a mere fraction of the gas my old car used to guzzle, it gets an incredible 30 to 40 kilometers per liter of gas — the perfect antidote to skyrocketing pump prices. My weekly gasoline bill plummeted by at least 80 per cent, and I imagine my carbon footprint shrunk by a lot more than that, considering that the scoot doesn’t have air-conditioning.

Getting stuck in traffic became a thing of a past, since the scoot was small enough to squeeze into tight spaces in between cars, except in the most heinous bumper-to-bumper logjams. This resulted in a drastic reduction in commuting time. It used to take me at least an hour and a half by car to negotiate the traffic between home and office during rush hour. On the scoot it took at most half an hour. That’s an extra two hours of quality time added to your day, instead of two hours wasted stuck in traffic and turning apoplectic with road rage.

There are of course drawbacks. On a scoot you’re exposed to the elements. You can keep yourself dry on rainy days with the proper rain gear, you can avoid overexposure to UV rays with sunblock, long-sleeves and a balaclava, you can even protect your hide with a helmet and an armored jacket. But even with a good face mask, you still have to suck in a lot of air pollution.

There’s also the hassle of having to go through checkpoints whenever the “riding in tandem” gang strikes, and the usual noises from local government officials about new restrictions on two-wheeled vehicles whenever news of motorcycle crashes gets too much media play.

But on the whole, the scoot paid for itself in no time with what I saved on gas, and road rage is a thing of the past (except on those rare occasions when I drive a car).

What the hell. As long as I don’t litter the streets with pieces of my scoot and my skin, I feel I’m doing my little bit for the planet.

Read the Sunday Inquirer Magazine’s Earth Day issue on April 27.