North Dakota Low-Speed Vehicles: 35 MPH Roads Only, $20 Registration, and No Golf Cart Class At All

Chapter 39-29.1 of the North Dakota Century Code is a short, self-contained low-speed vehicle code, and its definition does the most work. Section 39-29.1-01(1) defines a low-speed vehicle as a four-wheeled vehicle able to attain a speed on a paved level surface of more than twenty miles per hour in one mile and not more than twenty-five miles per hour in one mile, and weighing no more than three thousand pounds fully loaded with passengers and cargo. Both ends of that speed band matter. A machine that cannot break twenty miles per hour is not a low-speed vehicle, and a machine that will run past twenty-five is not one either.

That is why North Dakota has no golf cart page in the usual sense. A conventional golf cart is governed at twenty miles per hour or below, so it cannot satisfy the lower bound of section 39-29.1-01(1) and cannot be registered under the chapter. It does not fit anywhere else in title 39 either. An off-highway vehicle under section 39-29-01(2) must be capable of cross-country travel on land, snow, ice, marsh, swampland or other natural terrain, which a turf cart is not. An unconventional vehicle under section 39-29.2-01(2) must be capable of speeds in excess of sixty-five miles per hour and must comply with the equipment requirements of chapter 39-21 or 39-27. A golf cart is still a motor vehicle for title 39 purposes, because section 39-01-01(47) defines that term to include every self-propelled vehicle, so operating one on a public highway runs into section 39-04-37(1), which makes it unlawful to operate a vehicle that does not have attached and displayed the plates or permit assigned for the current registration period. The entire mention of golf carts in title 39 is one line in section 39-10.2-06(2), which exempts a person on a golf cart from the motorcycle helmet requirement. The practical route for a resident who wants street use is to buy a machine built to the low-speed vehicle standard rather than to plate a cart.

Section 39-29.1-02 sets the frame. A low-speed vehicle is a motor vehicle under title 39, with four exceptions: chapter 39-22 on motor vehicle dealer licensing does not apply, registration is governed by chapter 39-29.1 rather than chapter 39-04, a political subdivision may not require licensing or registration of low-speed vehicles, and the governing body of a city may regulate, restrict or prohibit their use inside the city limits in areas under city jurisdiction. That last pairing is the important one for a resident of Fargo, Minot or Williston: the city cannot make you buy a local sticker, and it can ban the vehicle from a street outright.

Because a low-speed vehicle stays a motor vehicle under title 39 apart from those carve-outs, the ordinary driver duties follow. Section 39-06-01(1) requires a valid operator's license to drive any motor vehicle on a highway or on public or private areas to which the public has a right of access, and section 39-08-20(1) prohibits driving without liability insurance meeting chapter 39-16.1 limits, with proof to be produced to an officer on request.

Registration runs through the Department of Transportation. Section 39-29.1-03 forbids operating a low-speed vehicle unless it has been registered, sets the fee at twenty dollars for each two-year registration cycle ending March thirty-first, allows the department to prorate an initial fee, and caps a duplicate or replacement registration number or card at five dollars. A copy of the application is evidence of registration for the first thirty days. Section 39-29.1-05 exempts from registration and fees a vehicle owned by the United States, another state or a political subdivision, one registered in a foreign country and temporarily used here, one validly licensed in another state that has not been in North Dakota for more than thirty consecutive days, and one used exclusively for work on private agricultural land or on an industrial jobsite on private land. Section 39-29.1-06 requires written notice to the director within fifteen days of a transfer of ownership other than a security interest, of destruction or abandonment, or of a change in the owner's address. A dealer needs no motor vehicle dealer's license under section 39-29.1-04 and pays twenty dollars for dealer registration numbers.

Section 39-29.1-08 sets the equipment list, and it is closer to a car's than a cart's: headlamps, front and rear turn signal lamps, taillamps, stop lamps, red reflex reflectors on each side as far to the rear as practicable and one red reflector on the rear, brakes, a parking brake, a windshield, a vehicle identification number, a safety belt assembly at each designated seating position, an exterior mirror on the operator's side, and either a passenger-side exterior mirror or an interior rearview mirror.

1 for which there is no civil or criminal penalty elsewhere in title 39 is a class B misdemeanor. 1-32-01(6) sets the maximum for a class B misdemeanor at thirty days' imprisonment, a fine of one thousand five hundred dollars, or both, so an unregistered low-speed vehicle or one driven on a road posted above thirty-five miles per hour is a criminal charge rather than the twenty dollar noncriminal disposition that covers most title 39 traffic offenses. 1-06(2)(l) prices at one hundred fifty dollars for a first violation and three hundred dollars for a second or subsequent violation within three years. 1-01(2) makes an equivalent city ordinance interchangeable with the cited statute for disposition purposes. 1-09.