Gridlock, fuel shortages. How do you like your 6,000-pound SUV now?

As the East coast returns to normal, post-Sandy, I'm struck by the same question I had post-Katrina. In the first case, it was watching vehicles idle until they ran out of gas on clogged highways out of New Orleans. This time, it's the stories of gas stations that, without power, cannot pump fuel and of New Yorkers spending four hours to commute by car on trips that would have taken half an hour if the subways hadn't flooded.

Where are the motorcycles and scooters?

While this is probably what most survivalists have in mind when they think of a motorcycle they can use to outrun the Apocalypse, it truth something like my Yamaha Vino's probably a more effective Urban Escape Vehicle.

My Yamaha Vino is perfectly suited to filtering through gridlock, and gets at least 75 miles to the gallon. A five-gallon jerry can filled before the storm -- which most of the vehicles stuck in New York's post-hurricane traffic nightmare would have burned up in the first morning -- would provide enough fuel for the Vino to travel 400 miles.