But the restaurant owner, 51, bought a candy-apple red Honda last week as worries about the price of gasoline overrode any trepidation about learning to drive it.

With the average price of gasoline closing in on $4 a gallon, many motorists are turning to fuel-stingy motor scooters and smaller motorcycles. Dealers across the nation report brisk sales this spring, particularly for those that get from 75 to 120 miles per gallon.

"Ninety-five percent of those who come in mention high gas prices," said Lonnie Trujillo, sales manager for Vespa of California at Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Sales of name-brand scooters such as Honda, Yamaha, Vespa and Suzuki rose 24 percent in the first quarter of the year, said Mike Mount, spokesman for the Motorcycle Industry Council trade group - noting that it is not exactly a hot sales period because of cool weather in much of the nation.

Many lesser-known scooters from China, Taiwan and South Korea also are sold in the United States, but Mount said those sales figures were not readily available.

"We believe, anecdotally, that fuel prices are definitely having an effect on scooter sales," he said.

The lowest-priced scooters such as the Chinese imports cost about $800, while name-brand bikes cost $2,000 to $3,000, and top-of-the-line models can go for $6,000 to $8,000.

Ross Petersen, a motorcycle and scooter dealer in South Dakota's capital, Pierre, said scooter and medium-size motorcycle sales were propelled by gasoline prices. Even people who do not fit the biker mode are buying, he said.

Within a day of buying her Honda from Petersen Motors, Kohler had 35 miles on her scooter. She said the price of gasoline was a major consideration, even though her daily commute is just a few miles.

"One hundred miles to the gallon is great," she said. "I don't do a lot of driving. It's just mainly going to work and back. And I thought, it can't be that difficult to drive."

Gingerly edging to a stop on her driveway, she said her husband worried about her safety, and so she promised to be careful.

"My family was so concerned that I'm going to get killed that I went out and got a mesh lime-green vest with reflective tape, and if other drivers can't see me, they're blind," Kohler said.

Johnny Scheff of Motoworks in Chicago, which sells Vespas, said high gasoline prices were prompting consumers to find alternative means of transportation. Scooters can pay for themselves in fuel savings over one to three years, he said.

"April was a terrible weather month in Chicago, and the things were just flying out the door," he said.

At Vespa SoHo in Manhattan, the largest Vespa dealer in the country, owner Zach Schieffelin said scooter sales also were being propelled by New Yorkers fed up with commuting on the subways.

"We are starting to see the big uptick we were expecting, and it's all starting to boom now," Schieffelin said. "All of us who ride on a regular basis are having people stop us and ask what kind of fuel economy we get."