*** Mini-bikes get more attention from police ***

Laramie, WI (AP) -- 08/15/2004
As large power stroke diesels and V-12s slowly take over
the highways, everything else is falling victim to 2004’s latest
trend — mini-bikes and motorized scooters.

“They look to me to be very dangerous. Once you get that
center of gravity that low, reacting to any kind of traffic situation
would be almost impossible,” Laramie Police Chief Dale Stalder
said. “I think that we’re probably going to have to deal with them
eventually. It may be a passing fad too.”

Clayton Van Houton, who helps his sons company Scootin’
Scooters with sales and advisement of just what they are capable
of, said that he makes sure the purchasers know that they need to
follow all safety regulations of the bikes and scooters as well as
those of the city of Laramie.

“I drill it into these kids and their parents’ heads, what they can do,
what they can’t do, what they shouldn’t do,” Van Houton said.
“If you drive in the street and you get picked up, then you’re
going to lose the scooter and everything else. You play by
whatever Laramie has for a law.”

At this point, the law in Laramie isn’t clear about where the
scooters or mini-bikes fit in, or what they have to do to be illegal.

“They are technically not legal, I don’t think,” Stalder said.
“But I don’t think that we have addressed it yet.”

The scooters and bikes have a small enough engine and don’t go
fast enough that they fall into the same class as a Moped or bicycle.
The only place they can’t go is the sidewalk, because the only
motorized vehicles allowed on sidewalks are wheel chairs.

The scooters are “basically treated like a bicycle, in that they’re to
keep as far to the right as possible, but they can use the lane if need
be,”
Stalder said. “Those little mini-bikes … are probably going to pose a
different problem and it’s something that we really haven’t addressed
yet.”

Stalder said that the mini-bikes are relatively cheap and some
can get up to 40-50 mph. A low center of gravity and the fact
that they’re barely visible from a moving vehicle are all concerns
that Stalder said would be addressed in the future.

Because the engines on the bikes and scooters are under 50 CCs,
they don’t qualify as a vehicle and are therefore not expected to
have head or taillights, or indicators. And because there is no
licensing procedure for the bikes or the scooters, any age person
can ride them.

The one stipulation that Laramie police could stop the bikes on is
that anything with over five horsepower is considered a motor
driven cycle. As far as the scooters are concerned, the biggest
stock engines only produce two-and-a-half horsepower but can
be upgraded to five.

The only complaints Stalder remembers hearing concerning the
bikes and scooters in town is noise. But they’ll have to be in violation

of vehicle decibel noise levels. Out-amplifying some of today’s bigger
diesels is going to be tough for the little engines the size of a lunch
box.
The maximum allowable decibel level in town is 55 during the day and
50 at night.

Because there are no air emission laws in Wyoming, the bikes and
scooters are safe unless they’re releasing an unseasonably large
amount of smoke, Stalder said.

Basically the only way the mini-bikers can get stopped by police
is for riding them recklessly or being drunk, now that bicycle riders
are eligible for biking under the influence.

Some of the potential issues with the scooters and bikes are wheel
size, height from ground, lights, visibility from automobiles and
helmets
under the age of 18.

“How safe it is for somebody to operate those while their legs are
jacked up around their knees,” is yet another issue, Stalder said.

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