Hopefully when people get used to see MP3 scooters on the road, they won't have the pressing need to take a good long look at it. Especially when they're driving and jockeying to get a good look in their side view mirror. I don't mind the attention since it's the scooter and not me they're trying to look at, but I do mind the erratic weaving of the car ahead as the driver tries to see what the heck that is behind him.

I've been mulling this one over for a week. Before the heat wave hit, I was out zipping around town, not headed anywhere in particular, just wracking miles up on the odometer. I was headed down a road that frequently has some light traffic, but I like it because there are some baby curves that are fun to lean in if (when I'm able to get up to speed...it also runs right by a development called "Leisure Town," where one must be 55 or older to live...traffic can be pretty slow right around there sometimes.) Ahead of me was a giant gas guzzler, and just before we hit the curves, he spotted me in his mirror.

Apparently he had a great need to figure out what that thing I was on was, because he kept swerving to the right, trying to get a good look in his side view mirror. He'd slow down, I'd slow down, he'd speed up, swerve back and forth...all while looking in that mirror.

I moved into the left lane so I wouldn't be right behind him if he hit the curb and went off the road.

Towards the end of one of the (gentle, anemic, not scrape-inducing) curves is a 3 way intersection...as soon as I could see it I started looking for left turners at the light. And sure enough, in a tuna-boat Buick was an elderly man waiting to turn left when the light went green. I slowed down, knowing that the only way to make it through before it went red for me was to gun it, and there was no way I was doing that. One, Gas Guzzler Boy was still not paying attention, and two, well, it would have been stupid.

Then the horror hit me...the SUV was not slowing down. The driver was not paying attention to what was ahead of him at all, fixated on looking at the scooter. I held my breath as I stopped, hoping that the old guy in the Buick was more attentive than the guy in the SUV.

And he was. Thank God, he didn't go when he light went green. The driver of the SUV suddenly slammed on his brakes and slid way more than halfway into the intersection. If the elderly guy had gone...I'm pretty sure he would have been hit broadside and hard enough to not survive it.

The SUV crept through the intersection and pulled over, whereupon the woman sitting next to the driver was slapping at his head with both hands, pretty pissed off, I think. The old guy in the Buick was shaking his head when he finally turned. I was about 5 kinds of annoyed and frankly, a little shaken up.

I can deal with the calls out car windows, wondering what the scooter is, when the training wheels are coming off, even the shrieks of I WANT ONE! I don't mind coming out of a store and finding scary looking Harley dudes circling it , I don't mind answering their questions. I didn't even mind coming out of a McDonald's today and finding a bike cop looking at it (although I could have lived without "What happened to your sport bike?" I did not need to know that any of the cops around here can match rider to ride...)

I have a hard time dealing with the idea that I might cause an accident. A fender bender, oh well. That would suck but it's not the end of the world. Fenders can be fixed. But if someone got hurt...

If Gas-Guzzler Boy had t-boned the Buick, the old guy would probably be dead. It wouldn't be my fault, but still...it would have happened because I was there.

So yeah, I think I'll be happier when the MP3 isn't such a novelty.