Motorcycles versus Scooters

In Siena there is almost nowhere for cars to park. On the narrow streets of the city, if there is a parked motor vehicle, it will almost always be a scooter, or else a motorcycle. Steve has been trying to teach me to identify them instantly, as he can do (he once briefly owned a motorcycle, but ever since being hit from behind by a passing car, he has never ridden one), but it doesn't matter a lot to me what they are, so I'm a poor student.

However, after a few times of looking at collections of parked two-wheeled vehicles, he got me as far as understanding that with motorcycles the driver drives with her/his feet shifting gears, while on scooters the driver has footrests. The location and size of the motor, and of the fuel tank, also were mentioned.

Today we encountered this child-sized vehicle and he challenged me to identify it. Seeing the footrests, I called it a scooter. No no no, he said, look at the engine (it's blue plastic and kid-sized, but imagine that it's an engine) -- the engine is much bigger than it would be on a scooter. It only has footrests because it's for a child, who needs footrests, but anyone can see it's really a motorcycle.

I said it's a hybrid, and we laughed.