These aren't stand-up scooters, like the ones kids use. And they don't cry out for a black leather jacket.
They're electric-powered chairs on wheels that putt-putt along at a modest 5 or 6 miles per hour with the touch of a lever. They provide a taste of outdoor freedom to not only the certifiably disabled but also those with lesser ailments - shortness of breath, a sprained ankle, advanced pregnancy, sore feet. And yes, obesity.
Scooters' popularity will continue to grow among people of all ages who have difficulty walking long distances, market analysts say. Compared to a wheelchair, a scooter looks spiffy. `It doesn't have the stigma,'' says Sheila Ewing of Frost & Sullivan in San Antonio.
For Miles J. Janousek, 91, of Sun City Center, the scooter means freedom. He doesn't have to wait for his wife to take him out in the golf cart; he can go to the clubhouse on his own and carry out his duties as an organizer of the community orchestra.
While he can walk with a cane, he has to do it slowly and carefully, `like walking on eggs,'' he says. ``While it isn't that serious in a house, when I get into a restaurant or want to go shopping with my wife, it's practically impossible'' without a scooter, he says.
He paid $1,600 to Mobility Express of Ruskin for his scooter, even though there were less-expensive models available. He laughed. ``I buy the bells and whistles.''
Jeff Pollard of Riverview is just 58, but as a post-polio patient, he too needs the scooter to be active in the community, to do housework and to run errands. In fact, he has four scooters, only one of which was covered by Medicare. He was willing to invest $4,500 of his own money in scooters to ensure he had the right one nearby when it was needed. He stores one in each of the family's two vans, uses a sturdy four-wheeler for daily household chores and keeps a zippy three-wheeler for tight indoor spaces and airline travel.
``I need the scooters so I can be mobile wherever we go,'' Pollard says.
Scooters range from 10 to 20 miles between charges, depending on the type. The smallest ones carry up to 250 pounds, but sturdier, more expensive ones are available for heftier riders. Super-strength scooters are for rugged terrain.
Scooters' ride on the rainbow follows a storm that has decimated the motorized wheelchair industry in recent years. Rampant fraud and tightened guidelines for Medicare reimbursements have shrunk the market and forced retailers to find products that consumers will be willing to pay for themselves. The shakeout shows that when Medicare bows out, the free market takes over.
Until recently, scooters were only a bunion on the foot of the billion-dollar mobility industry because Medicare controlled the market. Its illogical rules encouraged sales of the most expensive $5,000 power wheelchairs while discouraging development of less expensive equipment, especially scooters.
But when investigators found that waste and fraud had pushed up spending on power chairs 450 percent between 1999 and 2003, Medicare declared the free ride was over. It revised regulations in ways that will make fraud detectable and favor reimbursement for lower-priced products where appropriate.
In Tampa, the crackdown began in 1998 when federal prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit against 25 companies and 21 individuals, accusing them of bilking government insurance programs of many millions of dollars by charging for fancy wheelchairs but supplying stripped-down chairs or scooters - or nothing at all. Doctors were paid kickbacks for writing the prescriptions necessary to trigger Medicare payment. Criminal charges followed the civil case, and several business owners and doctors went to prison.
The same kinds of civil and criminal cases are now going on against power chair dealers in Texas and other parts of the country.
Meanwhile, many Tampa Bay power-chair dealers have disappeared. Honest ones who are left feel they are under close scrutiny, said Joe Rached, president of Mobility Express Inc., which has 20 Florida stores including six in Tampa Bay.
``All of us now look like thieves,'' he sighed. Still, he has no patience for those who complain. ``Believe me, Medicare was more than fair ... A lot of people took advantage of the system.''
Joe LoPinto, a former wholesaler who testified against crooked retailers in the federal trial in Tampa, says he's now out of the Medicare business altogether. He operates Scooter Links, selling directly to consumers over the Internet.
Manufacturers and dealers worry that imports of low-cost scooters and sales directly to the public will squeeze out the retailers who determine the needs of customers and service the machines they sell.
But dealers and companies concede that if they want to survive, they'll have to pay more attention to the demands of consumers who can pay cash, without relying on insurance. And consumers are demanding wheeled machines that are light, portable and affordable.
``It has to pass the mall test,'' says Cy Corgan, national sales manager for Pride Mobility Products Corp. of Exeter, Pa., the industry leader. ``Can you get it into the car easily? Get it to the mall, to the store, back home?''
Pride, which has its 72,000- square-foot Southeastern U.S. distribution center near Brandon, still produces more power wheelchairs than scooters, but it's adapting. A couple of years ago it created the Go-Go, a lightweight maneuverable three-wheel scooter that can be taken apart, stuffed in a car trunk and quickly reassembled. Its heaviest part weighs 30 pounds.
Pride doesn't sell directly to the public, but works through medical-equipment dealers such as Mobility Express and Mrs. Mobility, family-owned businesses in Tampa Bay. Such dealers are finding that the drag on the power-wheelchair business created by increasing Medicare scrutiny can be partly offset by the cash sales for scooters.
At the Mrs. Mobility shop in Spring Hill last week, the Go- Go was on sale for $850 - more than $500 off the retail price. ``We use it as a price leader,'' said store owner Tami Zmyj. ``We do sell a lot of them.''