Danish police seized an electric scooter capable of 146 kilometers per hour this week, as the Danish Road Safety Council warns that online guides make it easy to remove the vehicles’ speed limits.
Several police districts have confiscated illegally fast electric scooters over the summer, DR reports. The most extreme case came this week, when officers seized a scooter that could reach 146 kilometers per hour.
The legal top speed for an electric scooter in public traffic in Denmark is 20 kilometers per hour. According to DR, guides, videos and offers of help with increasing that speed are easy to find on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.
On some models, the limit can be lifted with a few taps on the screen and a single squeeze of the brake lever. Other scooters have to be opened up so the mechanics can be altered.
The Danish Road Safety Council, Rådet for Sikker Trafik, is urging owners to leave the settings alone. The organization directs its appeal in particular at parents whose children own an electric scooter.
Per Jakob Bøving Arendt, the council’s managing director, parents are responsible for making sure their children move safely and legally in traffic. He compares that duty to overseeing how children use their mobile phones and whether they drink alcohol.
Police tell DR that children under the age of 15 are also riding scooters that go much faster than the permitted 20 kilometers per hour. The council says parents should therefore understand the consequences if something goes wrong or the police stop their child.
Reclassified as a moped or a motorcycle
As stated by Arendt, a scooter that can exceed the legal speed is no longer treated as an electric scooter by police. It is instead categorized as a moped, a large moped or even a motorcycle.
That reclassification brings entirely different rules of the road on insurance, required safety equipment and driver’s licenses. The council says those requirements apply regardless of what the vehicle looks like.
DR visited Andreas Sørensen, a student in Skanderborg who repairs and modifies electric scooters in a garden shed in his free time. He says he taught himself from YouTube videos and material online how to install new software that lifts the speed limit.
Sørensen describes the process as too easy and very simple. What he does is not in itself illegal, but he says he has decided not to help everyone who asks.
He tells DR he will not modify scooters for young people, and especially not for children, because he considers it too dangerous. He adds that he cannot be sure his neighbor draws the same line.
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DR states that it contacted several Chinese electric scooter manufacturers for comment. None of them responded to the broadcaster’s inquiries.
