The ones I feel sorry for are the youngsters with their rubber burning crotch rockets, stuck in the Sunshine State with its straight roads:
Vespas, the deluxe scooters are appearing in greater numbers in Key West, mostly in winter because the do tend to be the preserve of the wealthy, relatively speaking. You can buy a lot of cases of Bud Light for the difference in price between this yellow Vespa LX150 and something like an entirely functional Taiwan Golden Bee:
A Yamaha Zuma 50cc will do the job if you are buzzing around town with a package to deliver:
And Duval Street gets crowded with people sitting in their cars cruising and checking out the scene. Irritating I call it, entertainment others call this style of not driving:
My wife hates taking her car downtown, she'd rather take her Vespa 150 anytime, and it seems there are a few people that don't think much of cars. Were you to live downtown you might find your car being used as a public trash can, it's one of those "island living" acts of disrespect you need to get used to. Drunk people do the weirdest things and they don't mean anything by it. They confuse their neighbor's cars for trash cans:
Or you can be like me and get out of town every now and again, to enjoy the open road, albeit straight and flat:
Some days it's good to drive a car, but downpours are usually short lived, as short as they are heavy:
Even if parallel parking is beyond your natural abilities you should try to fit into the space properly. Your best efforts may make your rivals for the sought after parking spot crazy, especially as those spots can be in short supply. Waste not, want not and if someone is tempted to stick their moped behind your badly parked car please don't knock it over when you finally lurch out of your spot-and-a-half:
Sometimes nature speaks and trees, of which key West has an abundance, make use of your car as an ashtray. In Turkey figs fall on vehicles, in Key West it's just inedible blossoms:
Cars and two wheelers cohabit quite well in Key West, even though some new arrivals still bring their hatred of bicycles with them from Up North and shout epithets at locals peddling:
If you do park your scooter or motorcycle at a meter you must pay for the meter, and you can stick as many vehicles as will fit into one metered spot (though a single moped at a meter is entirely legal, don't bother calling me in dispatch!). Any and each vehicle parked in a metered spot will get a ticket when the meter runs out, and you only get ten minutes per quarter- that's a buck and a half per hour versus thirty five dollars for a ticket. Meters run from 8am to MIDNIGHT six days a week and noon till 8pm Sundays. Or of course you can use bicycle parking racks- but you also get a ticket if you park your moped in bicycle parking. That's because the city is well supplied with parking for motorized two wheelers...If all that is too much you could do this to get around, except not on Duval where it is illegal:
On the other hand those of us who are a little further advance din years prefer to do this, an adequate compromise between speed and usefulness:
Here too are some rules. It's okay to ride a bike on the sidewalk as long as you yield to pedestrians and have an audible means of approach ("Excuse me!"). Use lights, you will get stopped, and I enter a million traffic stops BNL (Bike No Lights) in my night shift.Do not ride the wrong way on a one way, any tickets you get on a bike are moving violations against your driving record.The sad thing is these tourists (identified by the rental plaques on the front baskets) ride bikes in Key West as a vacation thing, this experience won't awaken in them the notion that cycling is useful transportation. I mean, what do you do if it rains? Melt?
It's the same problem pedestrians suffer from, and Key West, particularly Old Town is ideal for walking, even in inclement weather:
And in fine weather, dry weather walking is a splendor of sights to be seen:
Plaid shorts are entirely respectable in Key West, even away from the golf course. We are fashion rebels when it comes to being seen out in public, in your car, on your bike or best of all on your motorbike.
