I’ve just bought an electric moped which is great but I’m having serious problems with parking it.
The trouble is that I am a cyclist who is used to getting off a bike and pushing it into place, not a driver who is used to stopping the car and taking the keys out of the ignition.
So I pull up in the parking area and get off the scooter. Electric means there’s no noise to remind me that it’s still switched on. Start to push it into place using the handlebars as I would do with a bicycle and of course that starts up the twist-and-go “throttle” on the right handlebar and off it goes. The worst thing is that my instinct is to grip the handlebars tighter to try and keep it under control, which of course has the opposite effect.
I know this probably sounds really silly, but I’ve already done this twice and managed to damage not only my scooter but now somebody else’s so am quite bothered about it. Although it seems a bit like pure stupidity (and believe me, I am feeling that way), I think there’s a problem of bike/rider combination and basic human error based on what I’ve become used to doing over many years. Whereas I could (and would like to) refine my behaviour to fix the problem, I don’t want to leave a massive trail of destruction behind me while doing so!
I was wondering whether anybody else has had a similar problem and found any good solutions? Have any manufacturers considered this? Is artificial noise the way to go? Or maybe some kind of pressure switch under the seat or other trigger to cut out the current when not seated on the scooter?
Of course I’m assuming this is an electric-specific thing due to lack of noise but maybe I’m wrong there.
Cheers
H