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Scooters pick up speed in the city
A man drives a scooter through the city.
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TEXT OF STORY
Renita Jablonski: In New York City, 4 out of 5 commuters use public transportation to get to work. That fifth person may be rethinking getting behind the wheel. Time to rev up the scooter. Andrea Mustain reports.
Andrea Mustain: On a sticky summer evening, rush hour traffic speeds down Broadway at 14th Street. Among the yellow taxis and buses, plenty of SUVs roar by. But some New Yorkers are trading in their gas guzzlers for a commute that sounds more like this:
[Sound of a scooter]
A scooter. Sales are up in New York. And since these dainty vehicles can get up to 70 miles per gallon, it's easy to see why.
Jill Yu: Ninety percent of our customers are coming in this year exclusively because of the gas prices."
That's Jill Yu. She runs a scooter shop in Queens, along with her husband, James Yu. They say demand is way up from last year. Out in front of their tiny shop, James cuts open a giant cardboard box.
James Yu: There she is.
The gleaming blue scooter nestled inside is already spoken for. A guy who got tired of shelling out 100 bucks at the pump to fill his GMC Yukon bought this scooter for around $1,500.
The Yus mostly sell Asian-made bikes. But Vespa, the Italian bike maker, is also having a good year. In the U.S., Vespa sales are up a record-breaking 106 percent. And one of the top selling dealerships in the country is Vespa SoHo, right here in Manhattan.
Zachary Schieffelin: We've sold 14 or 15 in the last couple days.
Owner Zachary Schieffelin says that's a lot, even for him. Schieffelin says he hopes this means New York will start to look more like London or Rome -- the streets buzzing with as many scooters as cars.
But New York's Department of Transportation says not so fast. The department doesn't plan to make scooter parking or riding any easier. They'd rather you just took public transportation.
But artist Tim Wilson says he got his scooter to avoid the subway. And it costs only $10 a week for gas.
Wilson says it's not just the convenience and economics that make scooters great:
Tim Wilson: It's the best way to see the city.
He climbs on his pale yellow Vespa for the scenic ride back to Brooklyn.
Mustain: How long does it take you to get home?
Wilson: About 20 minutes.
Just 20 minutes. Yeah, rub it in, Tim. It takes me hour on the subway.
In New York, I'm Andrea Mustain for Marketplace.
I have a 50cc Honda Ruckus that gets 95mpg and tops out at about 37 mph; it certainly isn't suitable for the highway, but I travel surface streets only to work downtown and speed is rarely an issue.
Time will tell whether the Chinese-made machines will endure; the Japanese bikes have proven themselves. I'd give the S. Korean Kymco a chance too.
Be safe out there folks; nothing but crazy people on the roads...
I have had two maxi scooters over the past year. A Suzuki Burgman 400 and now a 650. I have put on over 20,000 miles in that time period, saving over $3000 in gas over my 18mpg SUV. At that rate, the scooter will pay for itself in three years in gas savings alone.
My girlfriend and I bought our first scooter this Spring. We needed another vehicle, and could not afford another car. We sensed that, oil companies being the greedy people that they are, gas prices were NOT going to go down. We gambled right, our scooter gets over 70MPG, costs about $6 a week in gas VS about $40 in the car. Rain and killer codgers in cages are the drawbacks in this part of Florida. Other than than, we love our little red Chinese scooter.
Safety will always be an issue and you should always ride in a hypervigilent state. I got my scooter, a Genuine Buddy 125, for $2500. It is extremely reliable. You dont have to buy an expensive Vespa just to get something more reliable than a chinese scooter. You just have to do a little research.
Unfortunately, there are cities like San Diego which are really not made for scooters. They're so spreadout that you need to get on a highway to get anywhere - but it's still worth it. We live close to work and have 2 motorcycles and 1 scooter - they were bought for fun initially, but they're great now with the price of gas being so high. We went to a shop near downtown 2 months ago to buy accessories. There were so many scooters in there that you couldn't walk in a straight line without bumping into one. Three weeks later, the shop had an extensive waiting list to buy a scooter - the entire inventory had been sold. There are drawbacks as the accident rate will be going up. The best defense is still to be adequately trained to ride one of these things and spend some time on the road to gain more experience. Also, 99% of the time, you have to drive for everyone else - don't trust anyone even if they "see" you.
After riding the bus in Miami, I decided that scooters were the only viable solution to our traffic woes:
http://www.biscaynetimes.com/columns/harper/2006/harper_1106.html
It is worthwhile to report on the growing use of scooters due to gasoline prices. However, your story was lacking in two very important areas-- safety and reliability. What are the safety issues when riding a scooter alongside SUVs and taxis? Secondly, how long do those inexpensive (often Chinese) scooters last before they start to fall apart?
