Take a pedicab ride at the beach

By Andrew Ostroski

REHOBOTH BEACH -- The streets of coastal Delaware can be a crowded place.
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Often, traffic can be bumper to bumper, with cars stacked up at red lights, stuck mid-turn around corners and knocking fenders while looking for parking. But there are more ways to get around beach areas.

The classic way is on a bike. The number of bikes ridden through the streets of coastal towns can be both a positive and a negative, according to some.

"We're very fortunate, because bikes do help with the parking situation downtown," said Rehoboth Beach Police Chief Keith Banks. "But what becomes the burden is when people don't follow the rules of the road."

Banks said with the number of bikes on the streets of Rehoboth Beach coupled with the motor vehicle traffic, both riders and drivers need to keep their eyes open for others on the road.

Not in the mood for manual labor? Mopeds have also been popular items for renting in beach towns. But for those who are frightened of the prospect of a two-wheel balancing act, something else has appeared on the market --the Scoot Coupe, a single-cylinder engine-powered, three-wheel moped that seats two like an automobile but is controlled using handlebars.

Some have expressed safety concerns regarding the vehicles, but Banks said problems have been few and far between in Rehoboth.

"The only concern we've had with these is people making the comment to us that they're very low and sometimes difficult to see," he said. "But they are licensed by the Department of Motor Vehicles and they have all the correct lights and turn signals and things like that, and they have tall orange flags so they can be seen."

If you're not up for operating your own vehicle, a mainstay of Route 1 and streets branching off of it is the Dewey Beach Rickshaws. Adam Henderson bought the company several years ago and said the pedicabs are popular among late-night crowds in downtown Dewey.

Henderson's fleet of nine pedicabs are operated by a team of drivers who are trained in traffic laws and safety involved with operating the vehicles since they travel in traffic lanes. Of course, lugging passengers up and down Route 1 isn't for everyone.

"I have some of these guys who come to try out who think just because they can ride a bike they can do this," he said. "They can't."