Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs How easily can an e-scooter be tampered with to make it go faster? A coroner is grappling with this question as he investigates a rider’s death in Melbourne.Moustafa Abou-Eid, 28, was travelling 50km/h, more than double the legal e-scooter speed limit, when he hit a speed bump in the city’s north and crashed in September 2022.An e-scooter rider on Southbank Promenade in Melbourne.Credit: Penny StephensSpeed limiters on e-scooters are supposed to prevent them travelling at more than 25km/h and the current legal limit in Victoria is 20km/h. Abou-Eid, who was not wearing a helmet, was thrown from the standing platform of the scooter with his head hitting the bitumen. He died in hospital from injuries sustained in the crash, about eight days later on September 30.Coroner Paul Lawrie is investigating the circumstances of the crash, Abou-Eid’s scooter riding experience and the design of the Kaabo Mantis 10 Elite e-scooter he was using.LoadingThat model was capable of travelling up to 60km/h, the Victorian Coroners Court was told on Thursday.Lawrie is also examining the design, power output and top speeds of the Kaabo Mantis scooter and similar e-scooters, to look at opportunities to prevent further deaths. This includes an area of “significant interest” around speed limiting devices, he said.Laws regulating e-scooter use vary across Australia.Last week, the Victorian government announced e-scooters would be legalised in October following a two-year trial. In NSW, a trial was only introduced earlier this year for small part of the Georges River Council area around Kogarah and five other zones outside Sydney.E-scooters are already legal in many countries and in Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT. In South Australia, the state government revealed laws to legalise privately owned e-scooters in June, proposing a speed limit of 25km/h on roads.AAP with Lachlan Abbott
