This article is part of a series on micromobility.
By PAUL RUFFINS
Photo credits: Paul Ruffins
Judging from the popularity of battery-powered scooters and bicycles, it seems the future of micro-transportation is high-tech and electric.
But buzzing along Route 1 and clustered outside of College Park’s restaurants is another fast-growing form of micromobility that completely bucks this trend: gasoline-powered motor scooters with an engine design old enough to collect Social Security.
Gus Manzur, owner of Scooter Solutions and Cycles on Rhode Island Avenue, has seen the market explode in the past decade.
“Now, there are more than 70,000 scooters in the DMV, and the number is growing fast,” Manzur said.
“Gas-powered scooters have become more popular than motorcycles because they’re cheaper to buy and easier to ride,” said Sean Rashid, the owner of College Scooters on Roanoke Place in College Park, which claims to be the biggest scooter store in Maryland.
Both agree that a factor in the popularity of gas-powered scooters was the expiration of Honda’s patents on its GY6 air-cooled, four-stroke motorcycle engine, which the company introduced around 1958. The engine was a tremendous improvement on the two-stroke engines that produce clouds of bluish smoke because they burn the lubricating oil that is mixed into their gasoline.
By using Honda’s proven design for free, Chinese manufacturers can produce scooters for about the cost of a high-quality bicycle.
Manzur’s scooter options begin at about $1,600, but Walmart lists an X-Pro brand 50cc scooter for less than $1,000.
Rashid explained that the increase in scooters is driven by delivery drivers using them for work. Five years ago, college students were his main customers, but now, he said, they are 25% students, 25% commuters and 50% delivery drivers.
Manzur estimates that 90% of his customers are delivery drivers.
Deliveries have shifted to motor scooters rather than motorcycles, cars or electric bikes because of the online food delivery model of apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash, according to Silliam Lee, the service manager for College Scooters.
Before COVID-19, drivers would typically work for one specific restaurant, often delivering pizza or Chinese food, and they only had to travel fast enough so customers didn’t complain.
Now, more restaurants use delivery services, and drivers compete for the best-paying deliveries. Motor scooters can weave through traffic and are easier to park than cars, leading to quicker deliveries.
“But,” Lee insisted, “it’s only working because everyone is ignoring the massive scam with all those illegal tags people buy that say ‘49cc No license required.’”
Lee said many people believe they don’t need a license or registration for a vehicle with an engine smaller than 50cc or that doesn’t go faster than 30 mph, but that’s been false since 2012.
Local laws are ambiguous about electric bicycles, but Maryland, the District and Virginia require every gas-powered scooter driven on the street to be registered and insured. Drivers also are required to wear helmets and possess a standard driver’s license or a motor scooter/moped operator permit.
Drivers of scooters with engines bigger than 150cc require a motorcycle license. However, many scooters displaying 49cc plates, such as the Fly Wing Tank II, have larger engines and can reach speeds up to 60 or 70 mph.
Competition from underground dealerships is cutting into sales at local shops, the operators said.
“Guys from New York are ordering shipping containers full of scooters from China, then bringing them here and selling them cheap because they don’t pay taxes or [pay] for the business licenses that I need to stay open,” Manzur said.
Manzur mentioned another fraudulent practice among some of the delivery drivers who have immigrated to the U.S. and can’t find work anywhere else.
“Sometimes one person with a license and insurance joins a service like Grubhub or Uber Eats, and then gets a lot of other people to do the deliveries [using the same account],” he said.
Where are the police? Well, scooters are hard to catch, and most local police departments only chase drivers for serious crimes.
The Washington Post noted another reason the police don’t seem too upset about violators is that, so far, the huge increase in scooters hasn’t caused substantially more accidents.
To Manzur, this is good news.
“The drivers need to eat,” he said, “and if the police start cracking down, I’m afraid that it will force them to start committing crimes a lot worse than not registering their rides.”
