So, for some reason, Daniel McDermon, a reporter for the New York Times decided to take the new Vespa S for a spin down the length of the island of Manhattan.
At first I thought, ‘That’s crazy! A scooter out there with New York city cabbies and what-not?”
And then I remember that I watched “Roman Holiday” last night (my wife has an Audrey Hepburn fixation), and I thought again. Sure, NYC has this rep for bad streets and even worse drivers, but are they really, in the grand scheme of things, that bad? I’ve driven there on more than one occasion, and it can be ape crazy, but it’s better than Boston (for one thing).
And neither of those cities is as bad as Rome, and there’s Vespas all over the place there. Weaving in and out of traffic, blowing through lights, dodging through roundabouts etc. etc. etc.
I went to school in Rome for a while, and when I was there, I didn’t see one accident. Not one.
The closest thing I saw to an accident was when a guy riding a Vespa pulled up to an intersection next to a girl and I (we were waiting to cross the street, coming home from seeing Aida performed in an ancient Roman amphitheater).
He came screeching up to a halt, slamming on the breaks at the last instant, the way every Roman does.
Then he casually reached over and grabbed my companions thigh, the light turned, he took off, and she said, “That guy just grabbed my thigh!”
I could understand it. She was cute (blond hair, blue eyes, stacked; and Italians are just crazy about that type of woman … which always puzzled me when 54% of the women in Italy look like Gina Lolobridgida) and he was Roman.
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