An 11-year-old Florida boy had to miss school and appear before a judge after a Labor Day ride on an electric dirt bike ended with police fingerprinting him, towing the bike and issuing a misdemeanor traffic citation.<\/p>\n
Cade appeared in Seminole County court Tuesday with his parents and an attorney over a citation stemming from his Sept. 7 encounter with an Oviedo police officer.<\/p>\n
His attorney entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf, according to News 6 video from the hearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n The case now continues into December.<\/p>\n One Citation<\/p>\n Embedded media follows; please allow a moment to load.<\/p>\n Body-camera video obtained by News 6 shows Cade being stopped while riding the electric dirt bike in Oviedo.<\/p>\n The officer described the machine as a 4,500-watt dirt bike capable of reaching roughly 50 mph.<\/p>\n News 6 reported that Oviedo police classified it as an electric motorcycle rather than an electric bicycle. The distinction matters under Florida law.<\/p>\n Under Florida Statute 316.003<\/a>, an electric bicycle must have fully operable pedals and an electric motor rated at less than 750 watts. Florida recognizes three classes of e-bikes, with motor-assisted speeds topping out at either 20 or 28 mph depending on the class.<\/p>\n News 6 previously reported that police said Cade’s bike had no pedals.<\/p>\n That put the machine outside Florida’s statutory definition of an electric bicycle.<\/p>\n Road Rules<\/p>\n The officer told Cade that several violations could have been cited but that he was receiving one.<\/p>\n “So, you’re getting one ticket today,” the officer can be heard telling him in the News 6 footage. “You could have gotten six criminal violations, but I’m giving you one.”<\/p>\n Cade was cited for failing to register the motorbike.<\/p>\n Florida law requires<\/a> motor vehicles operated or driven on state roads to be registered unless an exception applies.<\/p>\n News 6’s earlier reporting said Oviedo police also identified issues involving insurance, a motorcycle endorsement and eye protection, but officers issued only the registration citation.<\/p>\n The body-camera footage shows Cade being fingerprinted before he was released.<\/p>\n At one point, the officer asked whether he knew the machine was a motorcycle and that he was not supposed to be riding it.<\/p>\n Cade acknowledged that he did.<\/p>\n Earlier Warnings<\/p>\n The encounter came after Oviedo police had already begun focusing on high-powered electric bikes and motorcycles around the city.<\/p>\n In August, News 6 reported<\/a> that the department was holding safety sessions for parents and riders ahead of the school year.<\/p>\n Police specifically warned that machines without pedals and those capable of substantially exceeding Florida’s e-bike limits could instead qualify as motorcycles.<\/p>\n The department had also cited students earlier in the year following complaints around Jackson Heights Middle School, according to the station.<\/p>\n Oviedo has since been considering local rules governing micromobility devices, although the state vehicle classifications at issue in Cade’s case exist independently of any new city ordinance.<\/p>\n Back In Court<\/p>\n Cade appeared in court with his parents Tuesday while his attorney handled the plea.<\/p>\n His father, Chris, criticized the requirement that his son appear personally.<\/p>\n “How ridiculous is that that he had to miss school for that?” he told reporters after the brief hearing.<\/p>\n Chris has previously acknowledged that his son should not have been riding the machine on the road while arguing that police could have handled the encounter with a warning.<\/p>\n Cade’s attorney told reporters the case would be resolved.<\/p>\n The judge scheduled the family’s next court appearance for Dec. 2.<\/p>\n If you want more stories like this, follow Guessing Headlights<\/a> on <\/a>Yahoo<\/a> so you don’t miss what’s coming next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 11-year-old Florida boy had to miss school and appear before a judge after a Labor Day ride…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28870,100929,28,30,29,5765],"class_list":["post-414627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-electric-bicycle","tag-electric-motorcycle","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-oviedo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}