The Plain City Village Council began outlining potential electric bike and scooter regulations for the village of about 4,600 residents during an Aug. 5 special meeting.
The village is the latest central Ohio community to grapple with the alternative transportation modes, which have become an increasingly common sight as they soar in popularity across the country.Several suburbs of Columbus have passed e-bike and e-scooter regulations of their own in just the past year, The Dispatch has previously reported.
Plain City village council members spent around half an hour discussing e-bike and e-scooter regulations with village staff and each other at the Aug. 5 meeting. Their discussion focused on a slew of possible regulations assembled by village staffers,
including a requirement that riders 18 and under wear helmets, default speed limits of 10 miles per hour be implemented on shared-use paths, bans on riding on sidewalks, and punishments for parents whose children violate the new rules.
Much of the discussion was spent deliberating on how these rules, if enacted, would be enforced. Plain City Police Chief Dale McKee told council that the 18-and-under helmet requirement would be "kind of a nightmare to enforce in certain ways," leaving officers to guess if someone looks 18 or younger.
"So where do we draw the line here? Because as soon as we stop somebody and they're 18 years old and they don't have a helmet on we don't want them to feel like they're being picked on. Or do we wait until there's an accident before we have to enforce it because there's an accident and they don't have a helmet on, now they get a citation . . . There's probably no citing an 8-year-old. I mean, if I had cited an 8-year-old to send it to the prosecutor, it would probably be an issue," McKee said.
Several council members said the potential regulations would be a way to nudge residents toward compliance, and they would give village police new ways to enforce safety at their discretion.
"I think probably that we're giving you guys the tools to get the outrageous [cases], the dangerous [cases], having some enforcement capabilities with that. I think it's probably where we're missing something," Village Council President Tyler Harriman said.
Village staff will take council's recommendations and make changes to the regulations before any legislation is introduced, village administrator Haley Lupton said.
Transportation and neighborhoods reporter Nathan Hart can be reached at NHart@dispatch.com, @NathanRHart on X and nathanhart.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Plain City Village Council considers possible e-bike, e-scooter regulations
