jbinpb: The lateral stress that a sidecar puts on the frame is too much for that little, sidecar frame. There is no safe way to make it safe enough to where I would ever put anyone in a scooter/sidecar rig and feel comfortable. Yes, you see some people do it but they are truly playing with fire.
Sidecars can be a blast to ride and own but you need a strong motorcycle frame (and usually a subframe on the bike) to connect the sidecar to or you wind up with catastrophic metal failure with the frame.
Also, with a scooter, the extra weight of the sidecar (even without a passenger in the car) the extra stress and weight on the engine and transmission of a scooter is probably ten-fold that of attaching a sidecar to a motorcycle. If anyone tries to tell you something different, they’re just trying to sell you something where they’ll make a buck. It’s not safe.
