Louisa Pearson: Two wheels good, four wheels bad?

When public transport is a non-starter, motorbikes might be a solution to going green on the road

"YOU'D be better off getting a motorbike." That's a sentence I never expected to hear my father say. Why didn't he have that attitude when I was 17 and really, really, really wanted a bike? I had the bleached hair, the eyeliner and the black leather jacket, but no wheels.

Telling your child to get a motorbike seems to fly in the face of all parental logic, and I decided against telling him the accident statistics concerning bikes – they make up 1% of vehicles, but account for 20% of road deaths. He probably knows this already, but has decided that if I'm going to buy something, he'd rather see me on a proper motorbike than a flimsy little moped. "Oh, you could put a basket on the front for nipping down to the shops," said my mother. Not quite the image I had in mind.

I have finally had to accept that being car-free in a rural area makes life not exactly hard, but darn inconvenient. Much as I applaud the idea behind tomorrow's World Car-free Day (www.worldcarfree.net), my nearest bus stop is five miles away, meaning I first have to get a taxi (£8.50) just to access the public transport system. And before you say it, yes, I've got no one to blame but myself for choosing to live here.

Anyway, for a brief 24 hours, I was inspired by Chris Hoy and thought I had it in me to cycle everywhere, but that notion ended when my lungs threatened to collapse after ten minutes of hard pedalling.

A new car definitely isn't a goer – too expensive to buy, tax, insure and fill with petrol, not to mention the way it would knock me off the eco high ground. I was excited to read about compressed-air cars which get topped up in three minutes, produce no emissions and are expected to cost in the region of £2,500. Sadly, there's no sign of these OneCats being sold at the moment, and I don't have the cash for a Toyota Prius or any of the other fancy Hollywood-friendly hybrids. Which leads us back to two wheels.

I am not the only one who's had this notion. July sales figures from the motorbike industry reported a whopping rise of 22% – as compared with the rather less boisterous car market, which fell by 13%. But are motorbikes, mopeds and scooters any more eco-friendly than a car? I came across some studies which said that bikes emit horrendous amounts of hydrocarbons and other pollutants, but this only applies to old bikes (particularly those with two-stroke engines, whatever those are) as new Euro 3 regulations were introduced last year to address the situation.

In terms of fuel economy, a 125cc bike could give me 70mpg, which seems reasonable. A 50cc moped might give me 100mpg and would be ideal for city-centre commuting, but frankly I need to go faster than 30mph on the A roads – I don't imagine getting overtaken by a logging lorry is much fun when you're on a bike that sounds like an angry wasp.

Then there are electric scooters. Lovely concept, especially if you're on a green electricity tariff, as you can charge them up at home, but with that 30mph limit and only being able to cover 30 miles on a full charge, again they're best suited to short commutes.

Having initially set my sights on a Piaggio Liberty scooter, I'm now taking my dad's advice and considering upgrading to a Yamaha YBR125 (it looks like a proper motorbike), making a seamless transformation from mod to rocker, and keeping my green credentials more or less intact.