Motor Scooters vs. Motorcycles

Motor Scooters vs. Motorcycles

While motor scooters and motorcycles may look similar to people who aren’t very familiar with them, they are two entirely different vehicles. If you’re new to the motor scooter/motorcycle market, here’s a quick primer on what distinguishes them.

In general, motor scooters offer more comfort and convenience to riders. When you ride a motor scooter you can sit up tall, whereas on a motorcycle seat you’re usually leaning forward most of the time. And you can rest your feet flat on the floorboard of a scooter whereas on a motorcycle your feet have to be suspended on pegs, one on each side of the vehicle. The way you get on a motor scooter differs from how you climb aboard a motorcycle, too. Motorcycles require more agility: you have to throw one leg over a seat. To get on a motor scooter, however, all you have to do is take a step so that you’re standing between the seat and the handlebar, and then sit back; it’s much easier. Also, motorcycles usually have manual transmission only – one you use your left foot to control – whereas scooters often have automatic transmission capabilities. Motor scooters require less balancing skills, too, because their centers of gravity are lower than a motorcycle’s and so they inherently are more stable. Especially convenient is the fact that scooters come with storage room, usually located under the seat, but motorcycles don’t give you room to store things.

Then there’s the matter of the engine and the brakes. In a motor scooter, you can usually find the engine just in front of the back wheel, yet in a motorcycle the engine’s about halfway between the two wheels, stuck to the frame. Motorcycles usually have two drivelines while motor scooters only have one. As far as the brakes go, motor scooters usually have two brake levers on each handgrip: one for the front wheel and one for the back. By contrast, motorcycles have the brake levers in two different places. The front wheel brake lever can be found on the right grip, but the back wheel brake level is located down on the pedal for the right foot.

Motor scooters are, on the whole, smaller and lighter than motorcycles. Not only do motorcycles generally have larger frames, but larger engines and larger wheels as well. (Scooter wheels tend to measure sixteen inches or less in diameter, but motorcycle wheels are sixteen inches in diameter or bigger.) Many people think of motorcycles as being much faster than motor scooters, and that was true at one time. Nowadays, though, scooters are getting faster, and scooters that can go up to 100 miles per hour are quite common. And while scooters may still have some catching up to do in terms of speed, they’re still much easier to maneuver, overall, than their motorcycle counterparts.