Originally Posted By: kb01
She works part time and I work 10 hour days and right now, she either rides her bike or grabs an occasional ride with friends to work.
About a 1/2 mile of the trip is on a fairly busy city street and one of the advantages of a bike is the ability to ride along the shoulder. My biggest concern with a scooter is having to (?) ride in the traffic lane and a concern that the tiny wheels might not be the steadiest platform in the event of hitting a stray piece of road gravel.
In all likelihood, it will probably be a decision between a scooter and buying a much better bicycle than what she has now.
Sorry to bother you with that again, but that got me interested so much that I may do that myself (I have a 10 mile commute but the hot summer in a underground metro is not too much my thing, especially at peak hour):
Pushing forward my research on electric scooters, I found that you could transform your bicycle into an electric bike with an motor wheel, either in the front or at the back (leaving only 5 speeds instead of the usual 10 speeds).
The advantage of that is that the bike is lighter than the scooter, so with a 500W motor (you can go up to 1000W), you should go way faster than 32KPH, and it is still a bike so no problem with police using bike tracks.
To get some ideas, check ebay with key words "electric scooter" or more specialized "electric conversion kit".
Hope this help.