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After watching too many sad bastards who had lost their license in favor of a DUI come to roam his scooter shop, Doug Vitello had a brilliant idea: what if he could sell them a low-speed bike that could get them to work or to the probation office?
Thanks to a Chinese manufacturer and his disjointed two-wheelers, the Tampa Bay businessman’s dream has become the “DUI Scooter”. Yes, you can buy one too! Just beware of MADD, who is on his way to war to kill this flash of American ingenuity.
Riptide reached Vitello at their Tampa-area store this afternoon. He says he found the bikes, from a Chinese company called X-Treme Scooters, on the web after hearing several customers pleading for a way to get around after losing their licenses.
“We felt bad for these guys,” he says. “A lot of them are honest people with good jobs, and they couldn’t fit the bus schedules and their jobs were too far away for a bike.”
Enter the DUI scooter: for $ 1,500 to $ 2,000 it can go up to 20 miles per hour. The moped ride also has pedals, but it can run with an electric motor for a few tens of kilometers at a time. Better yet: they are apparently completely legal on the street without a license.
According to Vitello, they are slow enough to fall under state and federal rules exempting “low-speed electric bikes” from licensing laws.
Vitello says he sold the bikes to customers all over Florida, including Miami. Then, earlier this week, the Saint Petersburg timetables got wind of the idea and wrote a story.
That’s when Mothers Against Drunk Driving jumped into the fray. “Our concern with the marketing of a ‘DUI scooter’ is that it may seem to some like a loophole or a way to get around the penalties associated with a DUI conviction,” the organization said in a statement.
Vitello says he is baffled by the controversy.
“I still can’t believe the way they’re spinning this. We don’t encourage drinking and driving, ”he said. “It does not encourage any illegal activity. It meets a real need.”
Want your own DUI scooter? Check out Vitello’s website, sunset-scooters.com.
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