High gas prices lead to boom in motor scooters

AP article about our fellow Big Apple Scooterists.

NEW YORK -- With gas prices above $3 a gallon, software engineer Daniel Fry has been commuting to work over the Brooklyn Bridge in a car pool of sorts.

It's actually more like a convoy of motor scooters.

"It's fun to ride in a group," said Fry, 28, who joins a group of riders for coffee early Friday mornings before commuting into Manhattan via scooter. "In a big mass of scooters people look out for you more."

Fry is part of a growing community of scooter enthusiasts in New York and across the country who are taking to the streets in record numbers with gas prices so high. Fry fills up the 1.5-gallon gas tank of his scooter for under $5.

Sales at the Chicago-based Genuine Scooter Company, one the country's larger scooter dealers, which owns the popular Stella brand, have been doubling annually for the last three years, with even faster growth projected for this year, according to owner Philip McCaleb. The Stella gets about 90 miles per gallon.

"We are trying to combine fun and fuel economy and three-dollar gas is helping," says McCaleb