illegal speed for 100 euros

It may not be a simple hobby of those urban drivers who, at a traffic light that turns green, they perceive that electric scooters go faster and faster. For between 10 and 150 euros, any owner of one of these vehicles can get it tricked out so that it runs at more than 20, 25 or 30 kilometers per hour that, depending on which city and road, the law allows.

This newspaper has been able to verify offers from scooter sellers in different parts of Spain -Catalonia, Madrid, Aragon, the Basque Country, Andalusia and the Valencian Community- that for between 10 and 150 euros they alter the power in watts of the vehicle to skip the legal limit.

“All the devices can be delimited. Otherwise, nobody would buy them; to go to 25 & mldr; nobody would buy them & rdquor ;, explains a seller on-line Southern Spain. In the business They call it “delimit”, and it consists, mainly, in intercepting the sensors that disconnect the battery of the skate when it reaches 25 kilometers per hour.

Usually, the electric scooters for sale in Spain come standard with the capacity to reach 50 km/h, but limited to 25. These tricks they increase the power even to go to 70, and in some cases reach 100.

Result: precarious balance machines in the hands of a young audience that exposes the body to high speeds with no parapet, no airbag, and no sufficient brakes to respond. “Many people take it without limit and are careful not to give the cante of going too fast, okay? The legal thing is to take it limited; then you decide”, argues another supplier of scooters, this one in the north, to which EL PERIÓDICO has addressed. All sellers consulted leave the final responsibility in the hands of the client.

racing scooters

“On any given night we caught four kids doing racing in a bottle&rdquor ;, predicts a source from the Municipal Police of Valencia. The agent fears the emulation effect that the eSkooter Championship can cause, a scooter racing competition that is announced for this year on all kinds of virtual platforms… as a professional sport.

But in these races the use of the ESC is planned, a racing car that the organization calls “the formula 1 of scooters & rdquor ;, which reaches 100 km / h, and not the flimsy urban machines that already fill the streets favored by environmental policies of the municipalities.

One hundred per hour offers a supplier to its customers in the Valencian Community with a foreign-made model, the Dualtron Storm. “It is not legal to delimit it,” he admits. I sell normal scooters, which go out at 25 (km/h) from the store, and people tell me: ‘Hey, stretch it out for me’. Y I unofficially delimit it so that it runs at 50…”

You know it’s not legal… except in private: “If you use it for your farm, for a port, for an airport, a campsite… there it is legal & rdquor ;, considers this seller.

“A little trick & rdquor;

The Police monitors the most daring, but there is no record of a significant number of sanctions in Madrid or Barcelona on scooter users for speeding or other infractions. Among other reasons, because it is still awaiting publication in the BOE Manual of Characteristics of Personal Mobility Vehicles. A decree of the Ministry of the Presidency on November 10, 2020 commissioned its drafting to the Central Traffic Headquarters.

The law is yet to be done, but the cheat is already done: for between 150 and 250 euros a small control is sold that infers a legal or illegal speed to the skate at the will of its owner: “There is a little trick; it is a command. You carry it in your pocket, you press the button and you limit it…”, explains one of the suppliers contacted.

The device, similar to the electronic control of a garage door, is sold for 60 euros in the Ecoplanet store in Madrid, and between 36 and 220 euros in the Urban 360 chain in Barcelona. In the absence of legal prohibition, “It is not the seller who commits the fault, but the driver who violates the limit of speed & rdquor ;, explains the Valencian policeman.

The limitation is for some wet paper drivers. One of the tricks offered is to buy a certain skate model on AliExpress, disassemble it, expand its battery box and add other Chinese-made batteries of up to 1,800 watts (the usual is 250). Result: 80 km/h.

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One hundred euros is the average price of these clandestine services that are altering the number of electric scooters on the streets. Many stores that carry it use the environmental claim in their names and advertising. The cheapest offer, 10 euros, is published in Zaragoza. It consists of eliminating the speed limit on a control screen, via bluetooth. “It goes through the screen. In this model you put the parameters on the screen and it is delimited. You call me, I’ll tell you how and then you do it”, explains another vendor from the north of the country.

Already tricked-out devices are offered for between 300 and 750 euros in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Las Palmas and Jaén, according to offers published in the less specialized but more popular portal: Milanuncios. The tips for alter the machine also circulate on YouTube. Among the most eloquent, one titled, with flame emoticons included, “TRUCAR PATINETE so that it runs from 80 to 90KM/H”, with 4,400 visits. Another, less striking but equally frequented, tells how to change -with a screwdriver, a cutter and adhesive putty- the safety fuses of the vehicle so that it runs more; so that it starts, literally, burning wheel.