scooters in rome

Definitely the most fun... Probably the most dangerous, but certainly the coolest mode of travel in Rome.

THIS is Rome! - A boy, a girl, a piazza,
a fountain, an endless summer - and a
scooter! What more could anyone ask?

The scooter scene in Italy, and Rome in particular, is completely different from that in England. Nobody here is interested in scooters as collector's items or as fashionable throwbacks to the Mod era. So nobody rides an old sixties Vespa or Lambretta anymore. As a matter of fact, they wouldn't be seen dead on one! And why not? Because they're all riding nineteen-nineties scooters, not sixties ones!

Rome culture is a scooter culture because Romans have always ridden scooters, have never at any time stopped riding scooters, and will, for the foreseeable future continue to ride scooters evermore around their fabulously hip city.

Therefore, the scooter manufacturers, having such a steady demand for their wares in Italy, have never stopped making scooters, and the design of scooters has continued to develop in tandem with car design. Thus, British visitor to Rome, be prepared for a shock when you arrive, for the scooters of today that you will see in their thousands on the streets of Rome have evolved far beyond that bulbous fifties retro shape which you cherish so deeply in your mind's eye. (We do of course see some modern scooters in England, but their numbers are relatively few enough that we seldom notice them.)

Modern scooters come in all shapes and, yes, sizes. Swoopy aerodynamic fairings and heavily over-styled paint jobs in loud pearlescent colours, featuring the kind of patterns and strobe-stripes we in England associate more with Formula One racing motorbikes, powerboats or jet-skis. The old names like Piaggio are still around, but there's also many others such as Aprilia (infamous for taking The Spice Girls to court a couple of years ago because when Gerrie quit the group it was right after signing a contract with the company to promote a range of five different coloured 'Spice Scooters') and as in the world of cars and motorbikes, there's been a major Japanese invasion - Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda all market a full range of scoots here in Italy. Haven't seen a Kawasaki scoot yet though.
There's lots of moulded plastic sculpturing and 'air-intakes'. It's all a bit naff really. As with most things Italian, there is style but no taste. There are small, medium and large sized scooters, ranging right up to machines like the mega-mutha Honda Spazio which is the scooter equivalent of a stretch-limo.

Many machines have electric-start and indeed they need to have, for the 'Highway Code' in Italy permits fourteen-year-olds to ride a moped or scooter, and kickstarts are no fun when you're fourteen.The most significant thing in all this is that scooter-riding is not a boys only province;

Any self respecting schoolkid has their own scooter or moped, and this of course means girls too. While British schoolgirls stand shivering in the rain at bus-stops, or hump mountain bikes uphills, bundled up in crash-helmets and anoraks, their Roman counterparts are whizzing their mopeds around the Piazza Venezia on the way to school, long hair streaming wildly in the warm breeze behind them (crash helmets have only just been made compulsory here this year, but many still flout the rules). It's just way cooler than anything a British fourteen-year-old could ever hope to be in a million years... There is no driving-test for small-engine bikers as we in England know it (though it is mooted), which means that anyone, even the schoolkids, can take a pillion-passenger on the back with them. Whereas British schoolboys are emasculated by not being able to drive their girlfriends anywhere for a date until they are almost eighteen (at the very earliest, given the waiting time after the 17th birthday to take driving lessons and apply for a driving test), Italian boys, in contrast, are romantically mobile on mopeds at fourteen.
This means that Italian girls of fourteen and younger are used to being treated generously and well by their boyfriends, because girls already have their own scooters, and therefore their own mobility and consequent equality, independence and power.

Think about it; Girls can get to the cinema on their own or ride with their own gang without needing an older boy to take them. With such gender empowerment, Italian girls can therefore demand a higher level of respect, loyalty and entertainment-value from boyfriends, all in all adding up to a nation of young people with a far more grown up attitude towards dating and responsibility in romantic relationships than their British counterparts.

The scooter in Rome is much more than just a status symbol for schoolkids, (like, say, a pair of training shoes or a Nintendo console.) It is in fact a liberating influence within youth culture, and a catapult into the responsible world of adulthood.
Scooter-riding is not merely the domain of the young here though. People of all ages use them to commute to work.

And not just scooters; Equally numerous on the streets of Rome are mopeds and motorcycles. Here again the attitude is in complete contrast to that held in Britain, where the moped has always been viewed as that shameful little excuse for a gadget which sixteen-year-olds are doomed to ride until they can pass a driving test, or as that which pensioners who cannot afford a car have to ride: In Rome there is no such stigma attached to moped ownership! It is a wonderfully classless vehicle, on a par with cars such as the VW Beetle, Citroen 2CV, or commonplace items like the Zippo cigarette lighter or Doc Marten boots, all these things having acquired coolness, street-credibility and thus respectability over the years, for the simple reason they are cheap, cheerful,and peerlessly fulfill their original design brief. Ownership of a moped is simply the most cost-effective method of regular short-distance city commuting. Being a few inches narrower than a scooter, it is also slightly better than the scooter for weaving through traffic-jams. Most modern mopeds are actually hybrid machines designed to look more like a scooter with large wheels.

Another reason for Roman indifference to being seen on something as lowly as a moped is that Romans are always impeccably turned out anyway. Whilst the average British pleb is used to being anonymously hidden from close scrutiny by huddling in his car, unshaven and hair unwashed and probably wearing some hideous 'shell-suit', in stark contrast, the average Roman is fully bodily visible whilst riding their moped or scooter, and the climate being favourable, will be attired in a shirt and tie and well-tailored jacket, or for women, a smart business suit or some example of the latest street-wear that makes her look as if she's ridden her machine straight off the pages of Elle. The scruffiness or cheap simplicity of the moped or scooter acts as a contrasting backdrop to the elegant dresser astride it, and the bike takes on the role of a photographer's prop in a fashion shoot.

In Rome, cars are only for families, the old, the reclusive, the chauffer-driven, the unhip or those who can't afford to live in Central Rome. Cars are okay for a night out with the gang, or in winter when it's chilly. But if it's spring, autumn or summer and you're young free and single, when you hit Rome, get yourself a scoot!

If you're planning on spending a few months in Rome, you can pick up a clean used machine for under a thousand pounds. But even if you're only holidaying here for a week or two, you can hire a scoot for around twenty quid a day... Go for it!

This webpage is part of
The MotorScooter Ring

owned by
Dj Riel !

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