I'm having trouble finding US-wide data for average commute distance, but Appendix B here https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Srvy_Jo... breaks it down by metro area. It seems like most people in most places commute 8 miles or less, which matches my intuition. At those distances a 35mph scooter will generally get you where you're going at least as fast as a car, unless you've got a straight shot on the freeway and there's little to no traffic.
It doesn't matter if your commute is as short as 2 miles - when one of those miles is a freeway. In a few urban areas, you can take side streets to avoid the freeway, but in much of the country, this is not an option.
For me, for example, avoiding the freeway adds 17 miles to my commute - turning it from a 10 mile one, into a 27 mile one, adding over 100 intersections to it (Compared to the 12 intersections that my regular commute has).
For cities like Austin, a lot of businesses are on "frontage roads", like my company. So while its not a question of highway legal, these are roads with 55+ MPH speed limits and I suspect going 35 MPH will disrupt traffic enough to be dangerous.
Yep. In Atlanta pretty much every business is on a 35-45 mph road and people do not take kindly to you driving the speed limit, let alone 10mph below it. But that shouldn't even be an issue -- real, street legal mopeds have existed for years and can actually go at reasonable speeds. Not sure why anyone would buy one that's capped at such a low speed instead.
ACS survey (2012-2016) by the census puts mean commute at 26 minutes, industry-specific averages ranging from 21 minutes for military to 33 minutes for miners.
