As scooters continue to ride there way into popularity, injuries have soared along with sales causing the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to issue a warning.

Emergency room-treated injuries related to scooters increased 700 percent last summer with more than 4,000 scooter-related injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms in August alone, and more than 9,400 emergency room-treated injuries in the first 8 months of 2000.

As summer vacation begins more children are expected to take to the streets on scooters and parents need to take precautions to prevent these accidents. Nearly 90 percent of the injuries are to children under 15 years of age.

The best prevention for injuries is the use of protective gear, which can cost less than $35. The most obvious protective gear is the helmet. As with bicycling, a helmet is essential in preventing injury to all areas of the head. It must be buckled and fit snugly to be effective and it should be rated or approved by a nationally recognized standard. Parents should insist on helmets, scooters are no different than bikes or blades. Elbow and kneepads offer protection in falls. Fractures and dislocations accounted for nearly one third of the injuries.

Scooters should never be ridden at dusk or night and should be used on a smoother, paved surface without traffic. Scooter riders should avoid wet or icy road conditions or streets with water, sand, gravel or dirt.

As with any sport, practice is important and children need to know how to operate scooters properly. Children should begin at a speed and at angles that they are comfortable with and avoid daring tricks and stunts until they are really ready to handle them. Riders will have more trouble stopping a scooter than they do a bike with brakes and they need to learn to stop with the rear fender brake and by lowering one foot to the ground. The rules of the road call for scooters to yield to pedestrians and announce their intentions to pass.

Keeping the equipment well maintained is essential. Before climbing aboard, riders need to check out all the bolts, steer tube extension and handlebars to make sure they're securely fastened.