If you are like a lot of folks, you’ve been wanting a scooter or moped for some time, but with the cost of just about everything going up daily, you find yourself looking at cheap scooters.

To be perfectly clear, you’re not interested in falls-apart-quickly cheap scooters. You are considering inexpensive scooters. Cost efficient. High value.

Oh, heck. Let’s just cut to the chase. You want a cheap scooter. And you’re not alone.

We all have seen gas prices go nuts this summer. And, even though we’re seeing some relief, it’s easy to see the handwriting on the wall. The U.S. consumer’s love affair with things BIG is changing.

There was a recent article about a GM dealer in West Hartford, CT, who was canceling his Hummer franchise with General Motors to focus exclusively on scooters, motorcycles and electric cars. He is convinced that the auto industry will undergo a dramatic change as a result of the new gas price paradigm. Is he the next Einstein? Hardly.

So what’s the big deal? Well, scooters are cheap relative to any auto, get much better gas mileage, are inexpensive to repair, and are easy to insure.

People are taking notice. In the U.S., scooter sales increased 66% in the first half of 2008. And many dealers are out of stock and have long lists of customers anxiously waiting for their backordered scooters.

Scooters are already a status symbol for the eco-minded. The more scooters we see on the road, the more we think it’s cool! You can see everyone from cost-conscious students to elderly folks who want to let go of their larger autos jumping on board. Europe has been awake to the advantages of scooters for years. In the US, we have two car garages; in Europe they have two scooter families.

It’s not hard to see why scooters have become so widely popular:

• Great gas mileage: 50 mpg easily; up to 100 mpg for smaller models

• Very affordable price: $1,900 to $8,000+

• Top speeds: 40 mph for the smaller 50 cc engine models up to the 100mph range.

A quick search on the internet brought back over 82 million pages about scooters. It’s information overload. Who has time to dig through that to find the advice you need?

One guide that every scooter buyer (especially a first-time buyer) should have is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Motor Scooters.” It was written by the founder and senior editorial staff of ScooterWorld Magazine, the premier industry magazine for scooter lovers. It covers the types of scooters available, and offers invaluable advice about how to determine which is the best for you.

It also covers road rules and government regulations, so you know exactly where you can go and what you can do with your new scooter. It’ll even tell you about customization and maintainance.

And it tells you which are the best scooters out there. This is absolutely critical for those of us looking for cheap scooters.

There are lots of new companies around the world jumping in on this rapidly expanding scooter market, often with very cheap scooters that turn out to be nothing more than so much junk.

Don’t get fooled; get informed first. Then get the best cheap scooter you can afford.

And let the fun begin…