Scooter Craze hits South Utah
With gasoline selling for more than $4 a gallon, many people are looking for ways to save on transportation costs. One look at the streets of Southern Utah will show there is an apparent increase in the amount of scooters on the road.
“We got the scooter in July of last year,” said St. George resident Mark Speener of his family’s scooter. “We bought it to try and save money on gas. That was when gas was hitting $3 a gallon last summer. É The gas savings will pile up the more you ride it.”
Now the fuel prices are even higher and the scooter has become a welcome addition to the Speener family fleet, which includes a sedan and a minivan.
The 150cc scooter gets 75 miles to the gallon. Speener, the primary rider, says it doesn’t take much more than $4 to fill up the scooter’s small tank and the fuel usually lasts for more than a week.
“I think it’s great,” he says. “It’s really fun to ride. No complaints.”
Safety
Although Speener says he feels fairly safe on the scooter he does recognize he is more exposed than if he were inside a vehicle.
Tyler Seegmiller, of Cedar City, has had a scooter for about two years now and acknowledges that safety is a concern.
“You have to be really careful,” he says. “It’s a lot smaller than a regular motorcycle. You really have to pay attention to where you’re going. You have to watch other drivers more carefully.”
But like Speener, Seegmiller has also seen the fuel savings. He gets about 80 miles to the gallon on his 150cc scooter.
Since he is in Cedar City, though, the scooter is for summertime only. During the winter, Seegmiller relies on his Jeep Grand Cherokee, which costs him about $160 per month for fuel rather than the $16 per month he spends on scooter fuel.
Lori Hanna doesn’t ride her scooter much during the winter, either, even though she lives in Santa Clara.
“I’d rather be hot than cold,” she says.
However, even her summer riding is only occasional. It just depends on how brave she feels that day.
Hanna says she and her sister-in-law both bought scooters about a year ago. The second day they had them her sister-in-law crashed and was seriously injured. The fuel savings are still far from paying the thousands of dollars in hospital bills.
“Now I drive very nervously,” she says. “If you’re going to ride a scooter you need to make sure you have the skills and the confidence behind you.”
But her nephew, Easton Gorishek, 17, still enjoys riding his scooter, despite his mother’s crash last year. He says his mother has recovered.
Since Gorishek’s scooter is only a 50cc, his range is limited by his low speed. He rides it around his neighborhood or for his three-mile commute to work. When he returns to Snow Canyon High School this fall for his senior year, Gorishek plans to ride his scooter to school.
Like Seegmiller, Gorishek has seen the fuel savings when compared with his full-size Chevy pickup.
But unlike his aunt, Gorishek doesn’t mind riding the scooter during the winter. It’s the summer that bothers him.
“I don’t like driving it when it’s incredibly hot because I feel like I’m in an oven,” he says.
Justin Bianco, a service technician at Hard 8 Powersports, which recently opened on St. George Boulevard, has been riding a scooter for about three years. He’s been a full-time scooter rider for about two months because of the high gas prices.
Bianco rides his scooter year-round and at 70 miles to the gallon, Bianco says it’s hard to beat the scooter life. He and his wife often take the scooter out on the town for dinner and a movie.
As someone who has worked as a mechanic in the motorcycle/scooter industry for six years, Bianco says the most serious safety concern for scooter owners is experience. Bianco has been around motorcycles his entire life, so riding a scooter is second nature for him, but he thinks many scooter accidents are because of inexperienced scooter operators.
Options
Hard 8 Powersports is one of a few new businesses in St. George that carries scooters. Another is Planet Power Toys at 1037 E. 100 South. General manager Gene Van Orden says the store opened about four weeks ago and ordered in 60 scooters to begin with. The scooters sold out in the first week.
“We even have pink,” Van Orden says of the variety of Roketa brand scooters they sell.
The store carries 50cc, 150cc and 250cc models, though most fall within the middle category. The price ranges from $799 for the 50cc models to $2,499 for the 250cc scooters, which include iPod adaptors and FM radios.
Van Orden says owners can get about 20,000 miles out of their scooters if they take care of them, which means the scooters will easily pay for themselves in fuel savings. The 50cc scooters, though not very fast, can get up to about 110 miles per gallon, though this is always dependant on a variety of conditions, including the size of the rider.
But the scooters are appealing to a variety of people, from teenagers to grandmothers. And with the warm St. George weather, Van Orden says scooters are year-round vehicles in the extreme southwest corner of Utah.
While 50cc scooters get the best gas mileage, Van Orden says there is a safety consideration. Slower scooters will have a harder time keeping up with traffic and will lack the speed to create a safe space around the vehicle.
“If you have no power you can’t react,” Van Orden says.
And there are other options for those in the market for scooter-like transportation. Jarett Waite, owner of Laser Mania, purchased an electric bicycle last month. Though technically a bicycle, according to Utah law, the electric motor gives added power to assist in Waite’s commute.
After doing the math, Waite says he could probably commute to work by car for $2 per day or spend 12 cents per day with his electric bicycle.
“It’s nice to get some fresh air as well,” Waite says, adding that the bicycle puts a grin on his face as he goes to work.
There are other bonuses. As a bicycle it doesn’t require registration, insurance or additional certification on driver’s licenses.
The bike’s top speed is less than 20 miles per hour unassisted, which means it’s legal on local bike trails, he says. But he also uses it on roads like a cyclist, wearing a helmet and practicing correct turn signals.
A helmet is one thing scooters and electric bicycles have in common. Although Utah law does not require them, they greatly increase the safety factor when riding the roads.
Speener says a helmet helps him to feel safer on his scooter. And that’s the advice he gives to anyone considering a scooter purchase.
“Wear a helmet,” he says. “I got a helmet right away.”
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