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Published on Saturday, December 18, 2004
in the Naples Daily News
Last Christmas, the phone at Bonita Motor Sports rang every day with calls from parents desperate to buy their child a motorized scooter.
The season's hottest toy at the time, scooters motored out of stores nationwide, at a price of $400 and above.
But with only a week to go until Dec. 25 this year, the store's owner, George Jacewicz has plenty of scooters in stock. Not one person has called.
"The phone hasn't been ringing," Jacewicz said. "Good thing I didn't get that many."
Public service announcements and a informational campaign by the Florida Highway Patrol and other safety agencies have hammered the message home: the scooters can be dangerous, and in many cases, illegal.
Kids might want them, put parents won't touch them.
In contrast with last year, more people know the scooters are considered motor vehicles by the state, Jacewicz said. Even though the vehicle most resembles a skateboard with a handle and a gas or electric motor attached, with no title or tags, they are considered illegal on public roadways, even by a licensed driver.
FHP Lt. Douglas Dodson said that means they aren't allowed, not only on the streets but on sidewalks or on any public right of way.
The only place the scooters can be ridden legally is on private property, he said, which for most kids means their driveway.
After launching a wave of publicity about risks associated with scooters use by underage drivers, troopers were inundated with questions about the law, Dodson said. Were they actually going to ticket kids for driving a scooter, people would ask?
Dodson says no.
The campaign is more about educating parents than children, he said. Parents shouldn't spend hundreds of dollars on a toy their children can't use in most situations and that could be dangerous, he said.
Though kids as young as 8 or 10 have been driving scooters, the motorized versions can have a top speed of 30 mph, Dodson said. Children have no concept of how to handle a motorized vehicle, he added.
Unfamiliar with traffic laws, many don't pay attention to slick roads, the distance they may need to stop the scooter before hitting something or to what is behind them.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 39 percent of those injured using scooters are children, most of whom injured their head or limbs.
There have been deaths involving the scooters, including a 13-year-old St. Petersburg boy who died in 2001 after being hit by a car, according to the commission.
With such injuries in mind, the FHP created a 30-second public service announcement that is available online and has aired on cable channels statewide that shows the safe and legal ways scooters can be used.
Though the audience is wider, in publicizing the risks Dodson essentially was performing the same task he did on afternoon when he nearly collided with an 8-year-old girl.
He was driving patrol car. She was on a motorized scooter.
Dodson said the child had darted into a residential street on her new toy. Neither were hurt, but both were badly frightened.
"My heart was in my throat," he said. "She was shaken too."
He followed her home, the girl walking the scooter, the officer creeping along in his car.
At the child's door, Dodson explained the law to her surprised mother. Though she and other parents Dodson has told not to allow their children to use the scooters are often out a fair amount of cash, they are rarely upset about the law, he said.
"They say, 'Thank you," he said. "'Thank you, for letting us know."
The better Dodson does his job, though, the harder it becomes for retailers like Jacewicz to move their scooter stock.
Still, the Bonita Springs retailer, and others, are taking the fad's passing in stride.
He'll continue to do the occasional repairs on the scooters, Jacewicz said.
Ben Johnson, manager of Naples' South Bay Scooters, said the bikes were never that big a part of the store's business, despite the name. The scooter outlet is actually part of South Bay Marina.
Hoping to take advantage of the craze, its owner bought a handful of the vehicles several months back, planning to lease them out to tourists who wanted an easy way to see the sights, Johnson said.
The scooters are almost constantly available. Johnson said they get rented out about once a month.
Mostly, he added, by older couples.