As the price of gasoline soars more people have been switching
to motorcycles, scooters and mopeds, which get far better miles.
But as the numbers of mopeds and scooters rises so will the
number of accidents, safety officials have agreed. The United
States Consumer Product Safety Commission has reported that
there were 2,870 emergency room treated injuries relating to
motorized scooters reported in the first nine months of 2001,
and 2,760 injuries reported in 2000. This was a substantial
increase over the prior year which had only 1,330 total injuries
reported in 1999. 99% of these injuries occurred in children
under the age of 15. The most common injuries were fractures and
most injuries were to the arms, legs, faces and heads. Injuries
associated with non-powered scooters have increased dramatically
since 2000. During 2000, there were 40, 5000 emergency treated
injuries associated with these scooters. Again, 85% of these
injuries were in children less than 15 years of age, and 2/3 of
these injuries were to