The ultimate transportation hack must be motorcycle and scooters. I was surprised to see so few of these in my travel to California. Given the climate, it should be a no brainer. Can anyone shed some light on why they are not popular.
I wish more people used motorcycles here too (I'm in LA). But traffic moves much faster than, say, east Asia (where motorbikes are common). But those bikes are like 100cc. Here you need 600cc or more to handle varying speed conditions (0-75mph/120kph). And I could not imagine a lot of people I know feeling comfortable with that much power on two wheels.
This is probably related to a) the state of the roads here and b) the vehicle size (SUVs).
motorcycles have the whole "one accident and you pretty much die" thing going against them.
Of course, this changes around places like mountain view, where there are a lot more people on bicycles.
So what do you call the latter, if you call the former scooter?