Mopeds have been in the news lately but for the wrong reason. Some folks think mopeds are a problem, not a solution. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a moped jockey, but with no indication that gas prices are going to return to $2.25 anytime soon, mopeds look like a reasonable alternative.

True, mopeds make driving a car more nerve-wracking. It's like being behind a bicycle with a rubber-band motor and a New Year's Eve noisemaker.

Look at it this way. The automobile is no longer the great equalizer of our society. If you drive a car and can afford to pay the price of gas, you're above average. If you drive an SUV, you're one of the filthy rich. Like people who drove Packards and Cadillacs 50 years ago.

The reason cars are becoming more and more expensive is because they take up a lot of room and use up a lot of resources. The SUV requires more parking space and uses more gasoline just at the moment when history demands smaller cars that use less fuel.

Economists have a name for it: conspicuous consumption. It's the reason Hawaiian chiefs were big and fat and commoners were small and skinny. The chiefs ate up all the good food. So it's no wonder that a major number of SUV drivers seem to be overweight.

Of course, SUV drivers hate mopeds. Mopeds get in the way. Worse still, they are a reminder that a lot of people can't afford big cars. They are the downtrodden poor. They are the segment of society that always gets it in the neck.

It's true that a few people who ride mopeds do it to protect the environment or as a statement against capitalism. My good friend, a tenured university professor, rides a moped. In his helmet, he drives like a dervish and looks like a garden-variety astronaut. But then he's always been a rebel.

However, most moped riders do it because they are poor. Motorcycles have a certain panache, a Hell's Angels mystique. Automobile drivers have prestige. They've made it. They are the success story of the previous century. Moped riders are the Third World, the unwashed, the economically deprived, the soup-kitchen society of transportation.

It's heartening to see mo-peds popping up all over the place. It means the downtrodden are rising again. Poor people always find a way to climb the ladder. It's the American way.

That's why it's ridiculous to give parking tickets to moped riders who park in bicycle stalls. We should not discourage moped riders, we should encourage them. They are the solution, not the problem. You can park eight mopeds in the space it takes to park one SUV. Which is the problem and which is the solution?

We've simply failed to fit the moped into our template of society. Here's a machine that can take thousands of cars off the street. To start, why don't we build more bicycle racks?

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.