At the tail end of the smog-filled 1990s - the era that saw gridlock and road rage become a daily reality on the streets of urban Britain - a new figure emerged in the popular imagination: White Van Man. His catchphrase was "Oi!" and his opinions were as loud and as white and as ungainly as his method of transport. White Van Man was a symbol of what was going wrong with roads, a human haemorrhoid on the clogged backside of Britain. But now, in this more enlightened millennium, a new figure is emerging to embody the changing spirit of the age, someone who is fighting back against log-jam rather than just sitting in neutral and contributing to it, someone who is showing us what roads were originally meant to be all about - a way of getting somewhere fast. Forget White Van Man. This is the age of Blue Scooter Kid.

Pull up at a busy set of traffic lights in a car these days and the chances are that Blue Scooter Kid will come zipping past a few seconds later, a streamlined dose of Dolce Vita weaving between the bumpers and belching exhausts of stationary vehicles, and then, as the lights turn to green, race off into the distance before you've even let off your handbrake, you loser. And the sudden UK boom in scooter sales, up 22% on last year, is all the more remarkable for occurring at a time of record rainfalls. Into this growing market, just in time for the summer sun, comes Piaggio's new Vespa ET4 50cc, a four-stroke beginners' bike that let me become an apprentice Blue Scooter Kid for two exhilarating and occasionally hairy weeks. In accordance with the law, 50cc bikes come with built-in speed restricters, so they won't do more than 30mph unless you drop them out of a plane. But 30mph is more than you need for a spot of urban runaround. After one day at London's Metropolis for Compulsory Basic Training - which, despite the name, isn't compulsory with a 50cc at all but is a damn good idea if you don't want to wind up in a rose bush or under a bus - it was time for the open road. Twist the throttle with the right hand to go, pull the brake with the left hand to stop. It's that simple. No fiddly gears, no annoying clutch - just twist and go. At a time when cars are getting ever bigger and the gadgets that go in them ever more elaborate, it makes a refreshing change to coast down the highway on something that is only marginally more complicated to operate than a light switch.

And of course it looks fantastic. Those cute little wheels, that swan-shaped body, those two peek-a-boo mirrors, that step-through seating position originally designed to accommodate, with dignity, those non-trouser-wearing members of the Italian masses (women and priests). It almost seems a shame to get on it and ruin the aesthetics, although there is a kind of in-sync elegance to the way you find yourself perched on that big comfy seat - like you're sitting down for a fancy three-course dinner.

And, once on, it's hard to get off. The ET4 is quick off the mark and, despite my initial wobbliness, was a doddle to drive, and a good deal quieter than I had expected. None of that raspy putt-putt-putting and no plumes of black smoke exploding out of the exhaust (some of the older two-stroke scooters can be up to 30 times more polluting than cars - a fact that, thanks to new regulations, could see 2m machines in Italy wind up on the scrapheap).

So, on a day of blazing sunshine, I found myself gliding through the traffic, fighting the temptation to stick thumb to nose and waggle fingers at other drivers. It was like a whole new city had opened up and was sliding under my front wheel. Suddenly it was possible to do two things in one day. Even three. Or more. Dropped camera film in at Boots. Nipped off for haircut. Popped over to gym. Grabbed some lunch. Picked up photos. Met friend across town in Covent Garden. Got lost in one-way system and don't-turn-left signs and thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, even though it was rush hour and you could feel the angst hanging in the air. And work, which is an hour away by bus and 35 minutes away by pushbike, required a mere 15 minutes in the saddle of the ET4. That's almost as good as getting beamed there Star Trek fashion.

Scooter salesmen are fond of getting potential customers to do a few sums along the lines of how much they currently fork out on public transport, and how a scooter could save them money, time and stress in the long run. Fair enough. What they're not so keen to point out is that, for all their drawbacks, buses, trains and tubes have roofs, and roofs are handy when the skies open - as they did three nights on the trot over me, reducing the enjoyment factor (and the pothole visibility) to zero. Moral: get waterproofs or you'll feel like you've spent the evening in front of a fireman's hose.

There's something about scooters that gets in your blood. It could have been the cutting through traffic, the ease of parking, the ridiculously low running costs, the admiring glances (for the Vespa) and the fresh air swooshing past the helmet at every turn in the road, but I found myself drawn into the world of two-wheeled travel, even staying up late one night to watch an Evel Knievel movie in which the motorcycling daredevil jumps over a pen containing about 30 hungry lions and tigers. A bit beyond Blue Scooter Kid at this point - but watch this space.