Jobob, did you go to Brandeis? Or Bently?
That sounds like a lovely way for a grad student to spend a summer!
And I know what you mean by the touch and goes... my first husband was a pilot and i spent endless hours in planes with him, doing that. Of course now, I would never even get in one of those planes!
It did appear that the mopeds were fairly well regulated; I even saw a policeman stop someone and make him put his helmet on. But, I did notice this phenomena where the men (both on mopeds and bikes) did not wear helmets, but the women did. Like wearing a helmet is just not macho. I was definitely in my old lady former school teacher mode when I told a teenaged boy I had seen riding around all morning with his helmet on, but not buckled, to buckle it!