California Keeps Low-Speed Vehicles Off Roads Posted Above 35 MPH

Two different vehicles are in play and the Vehicle Code keeps them apart. Section 385.5 defines a low-speed vehicle as a motor vehicle that has four wheels, can attain a speed in one mile of more than 20 but not more than 25 miles per hour on a paved level surface, and has a gross vehicle weight rating of less than 3,000 pounds. The same section says a low-speed vehicle is also known as a neighborhood electric vehicle, and that it is not a golf cart except when operated under section 21115 or 21115.1. Section 345 defines a golf cart as a motor vehicle with not less than three wheels in contact with the ground, an unladen weight of less than 1,300 pounds, designed to be and operated at not more than 15 miles per hour, and designed to carry golf equipment and not more than two persons including the driver. A four-passenger cart is therefore not a golf cart in the eyes of California law.

Section 21251 sets the default: except as provided in Streets and Highways Code Chapter 8 and Vehicle Code sections 4023, 21115 and 21115.1, a low-speed vehicle is subject to all the provisions applicable to a motor vehicle, and its driver to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a motor vehicle, apart from provisions that by their very nature can have no application. In practice that means an LSV used on public roads needs registration and plates, a licensed driver, and financial responsibility, exactly like a car. Section 4023 is the single registration escape hatch, and it is narrow: a low-speed vehicle operated pursuant to section 21115 or 21115.1 is exempt from registration.

Section 21260 is the road-access rule, in its form amended by SB 1151, Stats. 2018, Ch. 564, effective January 1, 2019. The operator of a low-speed vehicle shall not operate on any roadway with a speed limit in excess of 35 miles per hour. Crossing a faster road is allowed under subdivision (b)(1) only if the crossing begins and ends on a roadway posted 35 miles per hour or less and occurs at an intersection of approximately 90 degrees, so a diagonal cut across a 45 mile per hour arterial is out even between two slow streets. Subdivision (b)(2) adds a hard stop at state highways: an LSV shall not traverse an uncontrolled intersection with any state highway unless that intersection has been approved and authorized by the agency having primary traffic enforcement responsibilities for that crossing.

Local government can take road access away as well as grant it. Section 21266 lets local authorities restrict or prohibit the use of low-speed vehicles by ordinance or resolution, and lets a local law enforcement agency with primary traffic enforcement responsibilities, or the California Highway Patrol, prohibit LSV operation on any roadway under its jurisdiction whenever it deems the prohibition to be in the best interest of public safety. Such a prohibition takes effect only when appropriate signs giving notice are erected on the roadway, so the sign at the road edge is the operative document for a driver.

Golf carts get onto the street by a different route entirely. Section 21115 lets a local authority that finds a highway under its jurisdiction is adjacent to or provides access to a golf course and lies between the course and where carts are parked or stored, or is within or bounded by a real estate development offering golf facilities, designate that highway for combined use by resolution or ordinance. The designation cannot run more than one mile from the golf course where the highway is not located within a development. The rules a city adopts may establish crossing zones, speed limits and other operating standards, but they shall not require the golf carts to conform to any Vehicle Code requirement for registration, licensing or equipment, except that a cart operated during darkness is subject to section 24001.5, which makes a golf cart subject only to the Division 12 equipment provisions applicable to a motorcycle. The rules do not take effect until signs giving notice are posted along the affected highway, and for this section a golf cart includes a low-speed vehicle.

Section 21115.1 is the lighter alternative for towns that want crossings and nothing more. A local authority may establish crossing zones for golf carts, at any time other than during darkness, on any street other than a state highway that has a posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour or less and is immediately adjacent to a golf course. The zone must sit at approximately 90 degrees to the roadway, and the ordinance does not take effect until it has been submitted to the law enforcement agency with primary jurisdiction over the street, that agency finds the conditions with proper signs, markers or lighting will permit a crossing with reasonable safety, and the specified signs, markers or lighting are actually in place. Subdivision (b) states plainly that this is not a precedent for operating golf carts anywhere but in a crossing zone established under it.

The one mechanism that lifts the 35 mile per hour ceiling is the neighborhood electric vehicle transportation plan, and California has authorized it in exactly three places. Streets and Highways Code Division 2.5, Chapter 8, Article 1 authorizes the County of Orange to adopt a plan for the Ranch Plan Planned Community, the 22,815 remaining acres of the historic Rancho Mission Viejo in southeastern Orange County that the Board of Supervisors approved on November 8, 2004. Article 2, added by SB 1151 in 2018, lets the County of San Diego or any city in the county adopt one, and that article is repealed as of January 1, 2029. Article 3, added by AB 2432, Stats. 2022, Ch. 158, effective January 1, 2023, lets the County of Los Angeles or any city in the county adopt one, and it is repealed as of January 1, 2040. Everywhere else in California, no plan can be adopted and section 21260 governs without qualification.

Where a plan does exist the state fixes its skeleton. Routes are classified as Class I, a completely separate right-of-way for NEVs, Class II, a separate striped lane adjacent to roadways with speed limits of 55 miles per hour or less, and Class III, shared use with conventional traffic on streets posted 35 miles per hour or less. Each of the three articles requires the adopting agency to build the same safety floor into its plan: NEVs eligible to use the routes must meet the federal low-speed vehicle safety requirements at 49 C.F.R. section 571.500, operators must hold a valid California driver license and comply with the financial responsibility requirements of Vehicle Code section 16000 and following, and operation outside the plan restrictions is an infraction punishable by a fine not exceeding $100.

Driving a low-speed vehicle on a road posted above 35 miles per hour, or crossing one outside the narrow allowance in section 21260(b), is an infraction. 1 makes it unlawful and an infraction to violate or fail to comply with any provision of the code unless the code provides otherwise, and section 42001(a) caps the base fine at $100 for a first infraction, $200 for a second occurring within one year of a prior infraction that resulted in a conviction, and $250 for a third or subsequent infraction within one year of two or more prior convictions, before the penalty assessments a court adds.

Because section 21251 makes an LSV subject to the provisions applicable to a motor vehicle, the same stop can also produce citations for driving without a license, for no registration where the section 4023 exemption does not apply, and for lack of financial responsibility. Ignoring a signed prohibition posted under section 21266 is enforced by the local law enforcement agency or the California Highway Patrol that erected it. 15 each make operating an NEV outside the plan restrictions an infraction punishable by a fine not exceeding $100.

Where a golf cart is operating under a section 21115 combined-use designation, the local rules the city adopted carry the force of law and are enforced by the city, but only after the required signs are posted along the highway.