PIERRE, S.D. — Worry about $3-a-gallon gasoline? Buy a motor scooter.

"As people start driving them, they start finding more reasons to use them," said Doug Day, owner of Scooter Centrale and Vespa Hartford in Plainville, Conn. "They're practical, easy to park and get great gas mileage. I put $5 worth of gas into mine when it's totally empty, compared to $50 in my SUV."

As gasoline prices soar, the popularity of peppy, fuel-sipping motor scooters — most are rated at more than 50 miles per gallon, and some get up to 80 mpg — is soaring. U.S. sales, estimated at 86,000 last year, have doubled from 2000, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC).

"I put about 20 miles a day on mine, and I only have to fill it up twice a month," said Jessica Meuchel, 23, who uses a scooter to deliver daily newspapers in Pierre, S.D. She bought the two-wheeler this spring because it was costing $200 a month to fuel her truck.

Day said sales at his shops climbed nearly 200 percent last year and are doing well this year, too.

MIC spokesman Mike Mount said the market gained momentum when upscale Italian scooter maker Piaggio re-entered the U.S. market with the legendary Vespa scooter in 2001. Motorcycle makers such as Honda and Yamaha also began offering new lines.

Gary Christopher, an executive with American Honda Motor in Los Angeles, said Honda heavily promoted U.S. scooter sales in the 1980s, but annual U.S. sales peaked in 1987 and slumped after advertising was pared.

"It looks like this new resurgence of interest in scooters is something that can stand on its own without massive injections of advertising and promotion," Christopher said.

Dwight Turner, owner of GS MotorWorks in Frisco, Texas, a large seller of imported motor scooters from China, attributed the fad in part to rising gasoline prices and the coming of age of youngsters who have graduated from popular foot-propelled sidewalk scooters.

"Many 10- to 13-year-olds bought those scooters, and then got hooked on the idea of riding scooters instead of bicycles and are moving up the scooter food chain," Turner said.

Mount said the median age of scooter owners is 46, but they have wide appeal to both young and old, males and females. One in every four scooter owners is a women, he said.

Small scooters, especially those made in China, Korea and Taiwan, sell for as little as $800 to $900. Larger scooters, capable of legal highway speeds and more, typically cost $4,000 to $6,000.

The scooters usually are regulated by state laws as either motorcycles or mopeds. If classified as motorcycles, special licensing endorsements are required. Several states require young drivers to wear helmets, Mount said. As for liability insurance, some states require it and others don't, he said.

Young, inexperienced scooter drivers should be especially careful, said Ross Petersen, a motorcycle and scooter dealer in Pierre.

"I see a lot of people driving scooters with shorts, flip flops, no helmet, two-up on a machine that shouldn't ride two people," he said.