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National Ride to Work Day Encourages Motorbike Commuting in the UK
Green Technology Featured Articles
June 17, 2013

National Ride to Work Day Encourages Motorbike Commuting in the UK

By Steve Anderson
Contributing TMCnet Writer

There's an annual event in the U.K., known as “National Ride to Work Day.” It doesn't mean getting a ride with someone else, but rather it means taking advantage of a smaller mobile technology to get its users to work. Specifically, it refers to the use of “motorbikes, scooters and mopeds” to help users make that morning commute, and this year's event is a bit different than the ordinary.


This year, National Ride to Work Day is focusing on what are known as “Wheels to Work” schemes, in which young people are going mobile. A Wheels to Work scheme commonly involves loaning the devices to young people so that they can get around, especially in rural areas that are commonly too big to walk around with any kind of expediency, but also poorly served by things like bus or light rail. In turn, those benefiting from the loans are encouraged to save up paychecks so that they can get off the loaned hardware and instead buy a piece to use instead, thus allowing the loaned item to be returned and give some other youth a chance to move with comparative ease about the countryside.

Six months ago, when the Wheels to Work Association got started, there were 24 Wheels to Work schemes out there. Now there are 29, and reports indicate another seven will come online fairly soon, with currently 5,000 young people benefiting from the concept. The Wheels to Work Association, meanwhile, hopes to double that number.

While there are certainly benefits here for the young people who manage to find work and from there contribute to the programs that allow for such things to continue on, there's also a much greener element here to consider. Consider the issue of the car versus the moped. For the last four years, from 2009 to 2012, reportedly the most popular car in Great Britain is the Ford Fiesta. The Ford Fiesta gets an impressive by 29 miles per gallon in city traffic. By way of comparison, one of the most popular mopeds in Europe, the Honda (News - Alert) PCX125, has its 2012 models reportedly claiming fully 133.9 miles per gallon. Granted, not everyone in London and beyond is driving both a Ford Fiesta and a Honda PCX125, but just using these two numbers alone for planning purposes shows an incredible dichotomy: one moped is getting about the same gas mileage as four cars.

Basically, schemes like Wheels to Work are offering a major opportunity for improving green travel in both Great Britain and beyond. Naturally, not everyone's going to be able to use a moped year-round; weather conditions in many places simply won't allow it. But the more people that can make the migration to mopeds and do so are likely going to see big savings, not just at the pump, but also in the environment. It's a green move to make the move to mopeds where it can be done at all, and many drivers will likely appreciate the various other advantages in terms of maneuverability and the like that come with having one of these tiny craft on hand.

The moped may not be the ultimate craft to reduce dependence on oil and the waste gases it produces, but it may well be a big start at least in some places. As is commonly the case, any improvement is better than none.




Edited by Jamie Epstein


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