The Green Green Garage of Home

If you follow my blog you know I'm working to make our home and my family's life greener, more environmentally friendly. I'm much more conscious about turning off lights, running the air conditioning a little less and keeping electronic gadgets with thirsty power supplies turned off. But my biggest struggle has been getting rid of our Suburban SUV. Part of it has been giving up the roomy vehicle and part of it is balancing buying the right vehicle I really want. Anything that gets 30 MPG or less doesn't even seem worth it, and I'm just disgusted our automobile industry can't produce more vehicles that get well over 30, even 40 MGP. Our country has just been down right lazy about fuel economy and me right along with it. But I'm not going to buy an SUV that gets 22 or 24 MPG when what I want is 30 to 40, or more. I'll just drive my "subhuman" (my nickname for the Suburban) a lot less. My alternative has been to ride scooters.

My garage now has two scooters, a 150cc for my wife and a 250cc for myself. They get around 70 to 75 MPG respectively, and that's driving around town, not highway mileage. The biggest compromise in changing my driving habits to a scooter has been safety on the road. I took the motorcycle safety training a few years back, and I "strongly suggested" my wife take the course, which she did this past weekend. Still, I try to be extra cautious when driving the scooter and always wear a helmet.

We traded out the dirt bikes (sold them) we owned and used the cash for scooters. You can get an amazing deal on scooters if you are willing to shop online, and do some basic set up and maintenance on the scooters. Frankly, it's really easy. Just pull the scooter off the crate (wood or metal cage, on a wooden pallet), put acid in the battery and seal it up, hook up and charge the battery (charger included), put on the mirrors and stuff like the riding deck (where your feet rest), check the tire pressure, and go through and check/tighten bolts and screws (a little Locktite helps too).

I found our Chinese manufactured SUNL scooters online, for about $1000 and $2000 respectively, shipping included! Dealers want $2500 and $3500 for the exact same bike so you can save a bunch of bucks on the scoots and on sales tax if you are willing to do a little (very little) work yourself.

Tonight Mary Ellen and I went for a ride over to Anthony's Pizza for some dinner. We had cheese slices and soda. It reminded me of when we were first married and lived on Long Island, NY. After dinner, we popped back on the scoots and drove through the neighborhood on the way back home. It was fun.

While I can't say we're officially "green" since the subhuman is still around, but the garage has definitely gotten a bit greener recently. And with gas still around $3.65/gallon, it's pretty satisfying when I need to visit the pump on one of the scoots. It makes my wallet happy too.