Post by bigtex on Jan 8, 2008 17:17:01 GMT -5
Scooter sales have exploded in Iraq with familiar names like “Yomaha” "Yanaha" or “Mucati Classic
(I see another lawsuit coming)
www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/world/middleeast/25scooters.html?ref=world
Every day, more cars venture onto Baghdad’s dust-choked streets, adding to epic traffic jams and sending blood-pressure levels through the roof, as drivers spew invective, gesticulate wildly and steadfastly ignore any and all driving laws.
But tens of thousands of Baghdadis have found an antidote in the venerable motor scooter. Often imported from China and bearing almost familiar names like “Yomaha” or “Mucati Classic,” scooters have taken the city by storm, providing a nearly ideal way of getting about in a war-weary town riddled with checkpoints and bedeviled by car bombs.
A thriving support network for the care and maintenance of scooters and motorbikes also lines motorcycle row. One technician, begrimed and in blue overalls, said he had benefited from the increased number of Chinese imports.
“The Japanese ones, they never have defects,” said the technician, as he untangled a nest of wires springing from a partly dismantled scooter. “But the Chinese ones, their electric wiring always goes.”
--rest snipped--
complete article here:
www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/world/middleeast/25scooters.html?ref=world
