Hawaii Registers Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, Not Golf Carts

The controlling definition sits in both HRS section 286-2 and HRS section 291C-1 in identical terms, and its fifth element does the real work: the vehicle must conform to the minimum safety equipment requirements adopted in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 500, Low Speed Vehicles. FMVSS 500 is the federal low-speed vehicle standard, so a factory golf cart with no headlamps, turn signals, mirrors, parking brake, windshield, seat belts or vehicle identification number is not a neighborhood electric vehicle and never becomes one by being driven on a public road. Hawaii wrote no separate golf-cart category to catch it, and no permitting route by which a county may designate golf-cart streets.

Section 291C-134 was added by Act 262 of the 1999 session. Subsection (a) forbids operating a neighborhood electric vehicle at more than twenty-five miles per hour. Subsection (b) keeps it off any highway with a posted speed limit above thirty-five miles per hour, while expressly allowing it to cross such a highway at an intersection, which is what makes short hops between low-speed streets workable. Subsection (c) requires a notice of the operational restrictions to be permanently attached to or painted on the vehicle where the driver can see it. Subsection (d), codified to the section under HRS section 23G-15, directs the director of transportation to adopt rules under chapter 91 to regulate their use.

Two further restrictions sit outside section 291C-134. HRS section 291C-53 ends with a flat sentence: notwithstanding any law to the contrary, no person shall operate a neighborhood electric vehicle on any controlled-access roadway or highway. That closes the H-1, H-2, H-3 and Moanalua freeway network on Oahu to these vehicles regardless of posted speed. HRS section 291C-130 then requires any vehicle designed to operate at twenty-five miles per hour or less, and it names the neighborhood electric vehicle specifically, to display a triangular slow moving vehicle emblem meeting ASAE Standard S276.2, mounted on the rear, base down, at a height of not less than three nor more than five feet from the ground to the base, unless the vehicle is guarded by a flagperson or a flare or an ordinance provides otherwise.

Registration runs through the county, which is how most vehicle administration works in a state with four counties and no incorporated cities. Under HRS section 286-41(a) the owner applies to the director of finance of the county where the vehicle is to be operated, and section 286-41(b) adds a step unique to this class: a person applying for initial registration of a neighborhood electric vehicle must certify in writing that the notice of operational restrictions required by section 291C-134 is on a permanent notice attached to or painted on the vehicle in clear view of the driver. Before any registration issues, HRS section 286-26(d) requires a certificate of inspection, and section 286-26(b) then requires recertification every twelve months, with new vehicles exempt for two years from first sale.

Section 291C-134 sets no penalty of its own, so the general schedule in HRS section 291C-161(b) applies to speeding a neighborhood electric vehicle, driving one on a road posted above thirty-five miles per hour, or operating without the required notice: not more than $250 for a first violation, not more than $300 for a second within one year, and not more than $500 for a third or subsequent violation within one year of the first. The slow moving vehicle emblem rule carries its own figure, a fine of not more than $500 under HRS section 291C-130(c), and section 291C-130(b) also makes it an offense to put the emblem on a vehicle that is not designed for twenty-five miles per hour or less. Driving an unregistered vehicle, or one without a current certificate of inspection, is enforced by the county police department and by the county director of finance who issues and can withhold the registration.