Pinamar it is synonymous with many things, depending on who you ask. But there is something with which it becomes increasingly difficult not to associate it: the quadricycles and the tragedies in its dunes. In the last week there have already been two deaths – plus one seriously injured – who are repeating the sad movie of every summer and now threatening to worsen. Today there is not a single person, especially the locals, who does not speak with anger or pain on the subject. But behind the never-ending drama there is much more than recklessness behind the wheel: there is a municipality traversed by legal and political problems, a multibillion-dollar auto business and also some mysterious owners who prefer to remain anonymous despite the blood accumulated in its sand.
Behind the scenes. The average Pinamarense calculates that the number is usually always one. One death from a quadricycle accident each season, a statistic made by eye but which is usually close to reality. But so far this summer that number has already doubled and threatens not to stop, aggravated by the full occupation that the city has this season and which is also noted in the number of “cuatris” circulating in the area of the tragedy .
Pinamar is also a special case compared to the rest of the cities of Argentina. From José Luis Cabezas onwards -but also backwards, via Menem and his Ferrari- anything that happens in its dunes has a national repercussion. It was what happened with the last two deaths from ATV accidents, a tragedy that filled the covers of all the country’s media and that led to a long debate on social networks. Most of the criticisms have an addressee: the municipality of the city commanded by Martín Yeza. “Why doesn’t Yeza prohibit quadricycles? The same thing always happens in Pinamar ”, was the comment that was repeated the most by users.
“Okay, he took out a decree and I ban them. And then what happens? Are they going to stop riding quad because I write it down on paper? Drawing a decree is the easiest thing in the world but it does not solve problems. Those who go there know that what they are doing is wrong, and that a mother puts her children at risk is even counter-instinctive, and yet it happens ”, the mayor defends himself in an interview with NOTICIAS. From the municipality they make this calculation: per day between 20 and 25 thousand vehicles per day go to “La Frontera”, the immense dune in the northern limit of Pinamar, which is attached to what is called “La Olla”, a desert of sand that is private property -which in practice is separated from “La Frontera” by signs that warn of the risk of getting there and nothing else- and that is where the bites are run and tragedies occur. To “La Olla”, calculates the municipality, about 10% of the tourists who are in the Border enter, that is, 250 quadricycles or UTV, a kind of 4×4 adapted for the sand. “They are vehicles that go at very high speed. It is a matter of criminal law: to prevent a situation you cannot make it worse. If the life of a person riding an ATV is at risk, what happens if we send someone to chase them and they have an accident? You cannot, for the sake of prevention, make the original situation worse. What’s more, They are vehicles that cost up to 65 thousand dollars, they are worth more than the top-of-the-range truck on the market. The State does not have vehicles of that level ”, Yeza defends himself. Lucas Ventoso, the Secretary of Security, adds: “In addition, the Province left us four patrol boats for the entire coast of Pinamare. It is impossible like that.”
Here comes the problem of the legal gray. LThe area of ”La Olla” is private property, which belongs to Gualtieri SA, linked to a mysterious businessman – who in the nineties, via a close relationship with the then powerful Eduardo Duhalde, was an important contractor of the State – named Victorio Gualtieri. In Pinamar they say that the man, with an extreme low profile, never interfered with the drama that occurs in those lands to avoid getting stuck on the subject: in fact, neither he nor the company nor the municipality are reported when the events occur. tragedies, since those who are in there running tails are transgressing private property. What Gualtieri SA does has some business logic: that sand, which today is not worth so much, could tomorrow be the most exclusive area of Pinamar, as urbanization progresses over the years, exactly what happened with the well-known neighborhood like Pinamar Norte. The quartermaster also takes refuge in this legal gray to dodge the darts. “Technically we get into private land when we go in there. It is a crossroads that is not easy to solve ”, says Yeza, while his critics, quietly, assure that he prefers not to bother the potentates of the area to avoid inconveniences.
There is also a mega business behind this. To dimension the size You have to think that Polaris, the best-known UTV brand, sells more of its products only in Pinamar than in the entire United States or Brazil. And not only that: 4×4 carmakers are betting heavily on the season in this city, and in fact there is more than one that has the largest -and most expensive- stand in all of Latin America here. Any movement -political or social- that affects this business would have repercussions in one way or another on everything that is the season of Pinamare, the months of work from which the entire city lives afterwards. In addition to the recklessness of those who handle the quadricyles, it is because of all this that the never-ending drama also occurs.
