ALSO | East Texas faces flooding as Ross Fire burns 90,000 acres<\/a><\/p>\nIn an August memo, Austin Police, Austin Transportation and Public Works, and the City Attorney\u2019s Office found that after a review of state law and city code, “e-motos” are properly classified by the state as motor vehicles.<\/p>\n
This means riders must have a vehicle registration, insurance, and an appropriate driver\u2019s license. Anyone under the age of 18 can not operate one on a public road without a proper license.<\/p>\n
They cannot be operated on sidewalks or trails in Austin.<\/p>\n
Enforcement options vary case by case. A warning would first be issued if an officer determines it will stop the e-moto rider\u2019s illegal behavior. If the behavior will likely continue, a citation will be issued. APD said some citations are required by police, if for example a rider doesn\u2019t have their e-moto registered.<\/p>\n
APD also said an arrest can be made if a rider is displaying dangerous behavior.<\/p>\n
APD said definitions, clarifications and examples have been provided to officers through a departmental training bulletin to help identify each device and understand enforcement options, especially when dangerous driving behaviors are observed.<\/p>\n
Educational videos and social media campaigns have also been developed and shared by APD and Austin Parks & Recreation.<\/p>\n
Austin park rangers also said parks officials are taking an educational approach.<\/p>\n
When staff see an e-moto on a trail or in a park, they will attempt to initiate an educational conversation about the legality and safety concerns that come with riding “e-motos” on trails. If they can’t have a conversation, they will call 911 to make a report to APD so that they can better understand the problem.<\/p>\n
Council member Ellis along with other city leaders are expected to provide a three month update on the resolution and what comes next at a press conference at 12:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Austin police are ramping up education and enforcement when it comes to high-powered electric vehicles,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-425237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}