Time and again, I'm reminded that you need to check your moped or scooter thoroughly before every ride, even if you're only popping down the street for bread. A funny little thing happened to me once. It was quite a while ago, but that doesn't really matter. Back then I was still riding a Verkhovyna 5 moped. It was a great machine. So, one April morning, I went out for a ride.
I was riding along, minding my own business, until two things happened at the same moment. I was riding along a pond on an asphalt road. The sun was already warming things up, but in some places the road was shaded by big trees. It turned out that overnight the air temperature had dropped to freezing, and all the moisture on the road had turned into a thin crust of ice. I didn't notice it, because there's grass in my yard, and the rest of the road was in the sun and the ice there had melted. But just as I rode into the shade, the engine died.
That sudden "braking" made the rear wheel skid on the ice, and the moped and I went down on our side, sliding into the oncoming lane by inertia. Luckily, it was in a village, early in the morning on a weekend. In short, everything turned out fine, and I didn't even get any bruises. Of course, I wanted to know why I'd fallen and what had actually happened. When I tried to start the engine, I found that the spark plug wire had come off the plug. That's apparently what "switched off" the ignition and acted as a brake. And on ice, that almost always means a fall. Quite a coincidence.
And it could have been worse if there had been other cars on the road. Of course, you need to be careful and watch the road surface, but if I'd noticed that the wire could come off, I wouldn't have fallen. So I've made it a rule to check my scooter for slip-ups like this, or for signs that one might happen. Checking the brakes and that the nuts and bolts are tight, plus checking the tire pressure, takes 2 minutes at most, but it keeps breakdowns and delays on the road to a minimum. I wish the same to all riders.