A Few Notes On The Entire Future of Global Transportation

While I am off biking across Italy, (and in the USA, May is National Bike Month!) I thought I’d share some transport-oriented paragraphs here about our future.

I will cut to the chase: the future will be super-padded Grandmas whizzing around on motor scooters, steering with one hand while chatting on a cell phone. It will also be extremely quiet.

And I have divined this how exactly?

Well, I have now travelled enough that I feel I have a complete global perspective and can make qualified predictions about the future of the world based on my own personal observations and the handful of photos I have taken with my phone.

With that out of the way, on to the future of all humanity. Cue the Grandmas!

Okay, so maybe these are not all Grandmas. Some may in fact be Grandpas. But the point is, they are wrapped up like hot water heaters in the middle of Alaskan blizzard season, as they zoom around Beijing on their silent electric motor scooters. Not even the cold can stop them.

In Italy, some use a sort of lap blanket for motorscooter warmth. In South Korea I observed that many riders have heated handwarmer gloves on the handlebars, but I noted few blankets. In China, they use a super-insulated combination of everything. Massive downy quilts attached to the scooter with handwarmers, in lively color, and I never saw the same design twice.

In Chinese cities the scooters and ebikes swarm like vast murmurations of silent starlings, except they happen to all be in the same bike lane where you are biking your non-ebike, or in the street you are this moment trying to cross.

The rules for who is supposed to be where seem nonexistent.

I shall try to convey the incredible scale of this particular element of traffic in China, using only personal observations and some photos I took with my phone.

In Suzhou one late afternoon I was waiting for my younger brother at a restaurant table and trying hard to give off the vibe that, Sure, I could order something in Mandarin any time I want, any time, but I am happy to sip my tea and just wait for my male companion to return before ordering, not because I can’t actually speak any Mandarin.

While waiting and sipping tea, I watched the school-pick up and early rush-hour parade of e-scooters outside in the road. This is about 4 seconds of traffic going by:

It’s the future, with everybody and their shopping and their kids on a silent electric scooter.

There are some motor scooters in Italy, more motor scooters in South Korea, and a zillion motor scooters in China, plus all the ebikes and stand-up scooters everywhere. In Italy they mostly ride in the road, but people do go whizzing on sidewalks on ebikes and stand-up scooters. In South Korea there is a vast army of motor scooter commuters and delivery riders, and they ride in the roads, down the tiny alleys, and on the sidewalks. In China there are more motor scooter riders than you can imagine, and they just ride wherever the hell they want, which is everywhere.

As many of you who have been bored to tears over the years by one of my extended monologues on the virtues of 4-stroke internal combustion motorcycle engines versus 2-stroke internal combustion motorcycle engines, or how many CCs are ideal for the motor scooter you want to ride in the city, or how to expertly slice a motorcycle seat lower for a shorter rider using only a bread knife, I love talking about, and riding, anything with two wheels.

I also like that so many are riding on two wheels in all weathers. Because two wheels is a proud culture.

The angle I want to underscore is the mayhem of silent masses of riders surrounding you.

Here at Where No Mangoes HQ, we do strive for the global perspective. And after riding in and observing the state of 2-wheeled transport in several time zones, I really can see the future.

If I had to pick out one representative image of our shared global transport future, it is this one:

She is totally protected from the biting cold winter air. She’s got luggage for her shopping. And she’s doing at least 25 miles per hour in a lane shared with bikes and pedestrians. She’s a silent, lethal, massive, quilted missile, with a stylish Burberry scarf there, who will take you out in an instant.

In the exciting, zippy, quiet urban future, we will all need quick reflexes, tolerance for a high adrenaline load, and the ability to jump out of the way really fast.

And one more thing. In China nobody bothers to use turn signals.