The road once again leaves us with a new unusual image. If a couple of months ago we already showed a young man who was transporting a washing machine on his electric scooter in Ceuta, now we have the mattress version. On this occasion the images, also published on Twitter by the SocialDrive platform for motorists, have been recorded in the town of Portillo de Toledo in La Mancha.
In them you can see a young man traveling in a personal mobility vehicle (VMP) carrying a mattress in a horizontal position, which protrudes excessively on both sides, which represents a danger to road safety.
Current regulations establish that in vehicles with a width of less than one meter, the load must not protrude laterally by more than half a meter on each side of its longitudinal axis. Nor can it protrude from the forelimb, nor more than 0.25 meters from the hindquarters.
The Law on Traffic, Circulation of Motor Vehicles and Road Safety establishes as a serious offense "driving vehicles with poorly conditioned cargo or in danger of falling", with a financial penalty that can reach 200 euros.
But beyond the aforementioned aspect, transporting such a bulky object prevents you from handling the handlebars well and it even seems that at some point it is difficult for you to maintain your balance. Hence, it could also be considered an infraction for breaching article 18 of the Traffic Regulations: "the driver of a vehicle is obliged to maintain his own freedom of movement, the necessary field of vision and permanent attention to driving, which guarantee his own safety, that of the rest of the occupants of the vehicle and that of other road users”.
The video has generated a large number of comments, many ironically referring to the fact that it was a protection strategy in case he suffered a fall. “It is the safest behavior I have seen from an electric skateboard user: fall directly on the mattress and not on the pavement; I hope they make it mandatory, a genius" or "As a veteran electric skateboard user I understand the kid, if you fall with the skateboard you will destroy yourself completely. Prevention is better than cure”, say some tweeters.
There are also those who point out that the person who is recording the images is also committing an offense because it seems that the driver of the car himself is doing it. And using any mobile device behind the wheel is totally prohibited. In fact, this distraction is so dangerous that in the last reform of the Traffic Law the punishment was toughened, increasing the points to be deducted from four to six.
