Italy likely to change scooter law

ROME - Thousands of scooters have been confiscated across Italy since a tough new law was enacted a month ago to force the nation's 10 million scooter riders to clean up their act. Now voices in the Government claim the law is too tough and must be modified.

The decree law laid down that anybody riding without a helmet or with the strap unfastened, carrying a passenger on a vehicle of 50cc, transporting animals, riding with only one hand on the handlebars, with only one wheel on the ground or being towed along risked having his machine confiscated and sold at auction.

The law was provoked by the scooterists of Naples - the wildest in the country - who routinely ride two to a 50cc bike, and without helmets, and some of whom indulge in bag-snatching. Twelve-hundred scooters have been confiscated in Naples and 2000 in the province of which it is capital. Elsewhere the harvest has been far more modest - 130 removed in Milan, for example, and 58 in Palermo.

Most culprits are young and poor, and the loss of an expensive scooter is a drastic blow. Mario Scali in the Ministry of Infrastructure commented: "Some sanctions are too tough while others are too light. What's missing is fundamental coherence, when someone can drive a Ferrari at 300km/h without having his car confiscated while someone who rides a scooter with his helmet strap undone sees his machine sold at auction."

The first appeals are being heard; already there is talk of an amnesty.

- INDEPENDENT