SCOO-TERROR-IFIC!!

One of my new found freedoms of life in Bermuda has been the release from the boredom, stress, frustration, and wasted time of car traffic.  I used to love driving -- growing up in Saskatchewan driving was initially the new freedom which allowed one to expand not just horizons, but hobbies and friendships.  Once in Edmonton, driving afforded convenience and flexibility...but more and more it meant time stuck in traffic, knuckle-whitening death grips on the wheel on icy roads in the winter and knucklehead drivers to avoid in the summer....makes me tense up just thinking about it.    Driving remained a tool to keep expanding those horizons, hobbies, and friendships, but during the winter months it could add 2 hours to the work day, plus the initial trek out to the car in darkness and temperatures of -20C to -30C to start the car, scrape the windshield, and remove the snowfall coating the entire car.  In retrospect...what a horrible way to start a day.  But a fact of life...in Canada.

In Bermuda I maintained a brief fantasy that I would get a driver's license here and buy a car.  Foreign driver's licenses are not valid here, you must complete both a written and driving test to get a license here, for car or bike.  International driver's licenses are not recognized.  There is also a little glitch called an Assessment number.  To control the amount of traffic on the road, each private residence is afforded only one assessment number.  Most rental units on the island are private units within a larger home -- so a single property with a single assessment number may have 2 to 5 tenants, and most often there is only a permit for one car.  Landlords can apply for additional permits and with the right paperwork often a second permit is obtained, but rarely would there be assessment numbers for more than that.  And so, many renters cannot have a car, helping keep the already congested routes from getting more clogged up.  I realized early on that it was hard to find a unit that was affordable and nearly impossible to find one that was affordable AND allows cats -- but to also include an assessment number just seemed against all odds.  And so I abandoned the idea of a car and began thinking about getting a scooter.

When I told my mom that I was thinking about getting a scooter, she wondered if I was getting one like Grandma's.  I may have had a chuckle, but she was on the right track.  Bermuda has car and bike licenses...but most of us ex-pats refuse to use the term bike as the maximum engine size allowed on the island is 150cc.  So we call them scooters, we routinely scoot about the island, and we find it scooterrific!  Much faster than the buses, cheaper and easier than waiting for taxis, and the expat feels the elation of such liberation when they get their first bike.

Fortunately the cost of relocating, paying high rent and damage deposit, and setting up house again  left me too broke to buy a scooter when I first arrived.  This gave me time to familiarize myself with the rules of the road, and the eccentricities of Bermuda specific to the road.  The obvious major challenge for us North Americans is that one is required to drive on the left side of the road.  There are also several traffic circles -- more commonly called round-abouts here, and many one way streets.  As my friend Karen (now working in Jeddah) recently reminisced -- it is quite easy to find oneself driving blindly down a one way on the wrong side of the street until you get the hang of it.  That aside, having not had many traffic circles to navigate in Canada in the first place, there is nothing quite so unnerving as heading into one in the opposite direction of all of your previous instincts and training.

One fateful day, the girl who had been hired by the landlady as a caregiver for her mother knocked on my door and told me her boyfriend had won a scooter at work for being employee of the year, but was leaving the island and so would be selling it only 6 months after it left the Scooter Dealership.  I decided to go out and have a look, and fell in love right away.  She was big and stable, had a flat platform for my feet and a bag of groceries, and the largest under seat storage i have ever seen.  She was shiny and red, which is both mine and Lexi's favorite color, and so I agreed to buy her...even though I didn't even have a license.  I called her Little Red.

Lexi ready to take Little Red for a ride

"OMG your bike matches your shoes" the tourist said to me.  "Of course" I replied.

In order to get a license, I first had to go and rent a scooter as you cannot get insurance if you don't have a license, nor can you write your license with a scooter you don't have insurance on.  Of course.  So I purchased the booklet on rules of the road and settled in for some interesting reading.  Top cruising speed on the open road on the island in 35 km/hr.  Helmets are mandatory.  Rules for sharing the road with horse drawn buggies is referenced and appears on the exam. The there was a section i had to read over and over because it was something about a solid white line means no parking (but it read as though it were in the center of the road which caused me great confusion).  Once you pass the written, you can book the driving exam, which consists of slowly weaving through pylons (harder than it looks), using hand signals to turn, stopping on a line, and driving both ways on a circle outline.  It is important to note that whatever class of bike you write the exam with is largest class your license allows you to drive.  Little Red was 50cc, so was my rental.  But this meant I would not be able to borrow any of my friend's scooters with more horsepower unless I rewrote the exam with a zippier scooter.  My logic was who needs more than 50cc when the speed limit is 35?  Well, after the licensing is done, one begins the unofficial internship of scooting on the road.  This is where my logic proved to be flawed.  Bermuda is a very hilly island, and when there is a hill, it tends to be of a steep grade.  Adding to the incline is the fact that Little Red was a very heavy bike, and quite often had a passenger on the back.  This made forward speed going uphill pretty much negligible, and Karen will also remember me the honk of angry cars behind us on some of those steep hills as we used the our new found but somewhat limited mobility.  There was however, great joy on the other side of the hill when the mass of Little Red on those steep downhills would propel us beyond the posted speed limit...one time we hit 50.  Other eccentricities of the road include the use of the horn.  The horn in Bermuda is not used as a warning system, or a sign of impatience.  The horn is used as a voice.  Honk honk, hey buddy how you doing.  Honk honk, hey baby nice legs.  Honk honk, I think I know the car behind you.  Honk honk, back at you buddy.  A happy, distracting symphony once you get used to it and stop reaching for the brakes to avert impending crisis every time you hear a horn (which is every few feet usually).  The rule of a helmet is an absolute must, but the manner in which is is applied seems to have some flexibility.  Once in a while you see a guy go by with dreds that would likely reach ankles, and it is piled on top of the head, with a helmet strapped onto the hair pile -- picture Marge Simpson with a helmet on top of her hair.  Seen it.  One of the more shocking things is to see parents taking their children, including tiny toddlers, to daycare on their way to work.  If the children are too small to hold on behind the parent, these smallest riders stand on the front behind the handlebars.  The most important traffic eccentricity is driving in the third land.  Roads in Bermuda only have one lane in each direction.  The third lane is the space between the lanes of ongoing traffic.  I swore I would never be a third lane driver, and diligently stuck to the rules for quite some time.  Then came the day that I was passed by a man riding his scooter side-saddle with only one hand as he had the other hand wrapped around the 8 foot Christmas tree he was carrying while simultaneously smoking a cigarette.  I thought if he could do that, surely I could sneak through traffic in the third lane once in a while.  It can be a little hair raising, or Scoo-terror-ific if you will, especially when your mirrors get clipped by an oncoming taxi.  But it was easier to navigate the third lane with Little Red as we were the slowest moving vehicle on the road, so we were generally overtaking traffic that was stopped or almost stopped, and only worrying about the oncoming traffic.

driving in the third lane
 

Driving a scooter does not mean fashion should suffer.  Heels, even stilettos, work just fine on a scooter with a little practice, and if a dude can carry a Christmas tree on his scooter, I can use a hand to hold fabric of whatever dress I happen to be wearing.  It's a little easier to maintain dignity on the front of the bike.  Passengers on the back often deploy the strategic handbag placement maneuver to avoid a wardrobe malfunction.

Little Red, as it turns out, was a bit of a lemon.  Out of love I spent far too much in the mechanic shops before I finally decided to fix her one last time and sell her.  The replacement was a 115cc black and purple Yamaha which I also love.  For $100 more I could have gotten a 125cc...but it didn't come in black and purple...easy decision.  It did require doing the riding exam for a new license.  But in addition to being a great looking bike, the engine has a signature roar that Dev describes as positively beastly...and I do enjoy giving it a solid rev in a crowd.  It also goes a LOT faster.  For the first time, friends were telling me to slow down rather than give me a 10 minute head start to get to our destination.  I used to just keep Little Red at max throttle and never worry about how fast (or slow) we were going, but that habit got me to some pretty cruisey speeds on the Yamaha.

While we love our scooters, we really don't encourage our guests to ride them.  If you want to rent a scooter in Bermuda, it is highly encouraged as it is a lucrative business.  There are many many scooter shops that are located at Dockyard, the hotels, and all over the island and most will come pick you up to get you started.  As a tourist, you do not need a license.  They cycle shop has insurance that will cover accident and injury...as long as you aren't impaired of course.  However, if you have not ridden a bike before, this is not the best place to learn.  The roads are very narrow and very windy, and you will be distracted by the random honks, beautiful scenery, vehicles driving in the center of oncoming traffic or impatiently passing you on the left or right, wherever there is room (passing on the left is a little rude but it happens), and of course, you are on the left side of the road.  In the tourist shops you can buy T-shirts and fridge magnets proudly claiming that "I survived the Bermuda moped."  They are likely a good seller because there is a certain truth to the claim.  In data released this year for the period of 2001-Feb 2013, there were 140 traffic fatalities in Bermuda.  116 of them were on scooters.  14 of those were on rental scooters, presumably mostly tourists.  The vast majority are young male driver's, which kinda fits statistics most places.



One of the orthopedic doctors at the hospital was quoted as saying in the media that for every fatality there are 200 accidents that require medical attention.  Many people get nicks, bumps, and bruises.  To be fair, vacation cocktails probably contribute a little bit to these statistics just as much as the roads and other drivers.  I recall sitting at the Swizzle Inn and hearing a little screech followed by the skid of a female tourist off her rental scooter...which careened unmanned into all of the bikes parked on the hill outside of the Swizzle Inn...knocking them all over.  She was fortunately unhurt.  However the impact was enough to even take down Little Red...and Dev's shiny brand new bike which he spent a frustrating 12 months trying to get fixed here.  Success was never his.

Driving a scooter can be a fabulous experience.  I love mine and it is one of the things I will truly miss about Bermuda for the rest of my life.  Most of my guests say their favorite part of the trip was cruising around to all the best spots on the back of my scooter.  But if you are not comfortable and confident on a bike, stick to the other methods of transport which are very reliable and efficient.  My friend Margaret completely ignored this advice and stealthily snuck off to a cycle rental shop, and had the most fabulous time touring the island on her scooter...but to be fair i met Margaret skydiving so I know she can handle most things.  It isn't my intention to scare anyone -- but to prompt consideration of your skills so that you have a safe and happy vacation.