ack in England mopeds have an enormous social stigma and are generally associated with middle aged women or anorak-wearing librarians who live with their mothers.

Yet my experience in Bermuda has convinced me the moped has a lot going for it, especially as they have now disguised them to look like proper motorbikes.

They offer door-to-door travel, minimal parking hassles, low gas bills and a handy means of bypassing traffic jams.

And it is surprising how many cumbersome, awkward items you can lug on a running board ? I have managed to move house with a few moped trips.

On a fine day scooters offer a sense of freedom not experienced while cooped up in a car or wedged between other passengers on a bus.

Admittedly they don?t offer much protection from Bermuda?s heavy downpours.

And it was one such deluge which led to my one and only accident last year as I left sunny Southampton for rainy Warwick which seemed to be experiencing its own microclimate.

The localised deluge lifted all the oil off the surface, forced me into an unstoppable skid and sent me sliding headfirst into a wooden fence.

Lying dazed in the mud I was approached by a passer-by who I naively thought had come to my aid but in reality had come to gloat.

?Hey, you have to be careful!? he told me as I thanked him, for what I don?t know.

He then repeated the phrase, clearly convinced I was deliberately to blame for an accident in which I was the only victim, before disappearing without even helping me get up.

I half expected him to report me for wilfully trying to damage the post with my head.

Yet in spite of the dangers I have become fond of my moped, even though I now seem to spend so much time taking it for repair that I have thought of claiming a part-time wage from the bike shop.

But while my moped can get me to work in around 15 minutes it is no good for moving families ? unless you want to be one of those people who view their small children as a kind of scooter version of the airbag.

Buses aren?t a realistic option for the morning commute as the journey can take around an hour but seem twice that with a restless, screaming one-year-old.

And there is limited buggy space ? even if you did find a bus driver willing to help you pack away the stroller.

My friendly landlord agreed to let us car share but his early start meant we were up at the crack of dawn and then hanging around Hamilton for an hour or more waiting for work to begin.

The Rockaway ferry is another option ? and sure it is everything they say it is, comfortable, restful, quick and smooth.

But it is also a $13 taxi ride away making it an expensive option while the Belmont ferry is not much nearer and has no room for my scooter.

When I first moved to Bermuda the ease of the commute was one of the things I most appreciated but now transport headaches loom large in my family as we exhaust a dwindling number of options while single-handedly keeping the taxi industry afloat. The predicament has forced us to move from the west to the less congested east and to consider buying a car, something which I am loathe to do.

Yet until this island gets serious about public transport and starts offering some traffic solutions more and more people like me will be forced to add to the problem.