Good evening, and welcome to the legislative committee meeting on Monday, August tenth, two thousand twenty six at five PM in the council chambers in the parish courthouse.

Please silence all electronic devices and remove all hats.

We met uh last Monday to talk about some just a few things to put finishing touches on it, and uh, we're able to finally release it uh late last week.

Um, it's a topic that I feel is definitely uh needed in the code.

It's absent currently.

Um, I also did uh take a look at uh other local jurisdictions and really didn't find much in the way of this type of code.

Um I think it's also code that they feel that they can enforce.

Um, and with that, I think I'll turn it over to Sheriff Champagne.

Um start because just like when we we undertook this, it's it's kind of complicated.

Um first I want to introduce some people with me.

Uh, on my right is uh Captain Maurice Bostick, uh, who's been in law enforcement a long time.

I don't think we have enough time to do it, obviously, during this meeting.

So I know you might not have had a lot of time to look at this.

But I'm not sure what the best way to go about it is.

We put some of these vehicles in definitions.

Some of we found in federal law, some of it in state law, but some of it we were on our own to try to come up with using standards by the national transportation, et cetera, et cetera.

Some of the definitions we did our best to put together.

As you can see, this is not just e-bikes, this is you know, electric scooters.

This is class one, class two, class three.

With you might have some questions.

So everybody just kind of mark your stuff and follow along.

If you get your question, we'll come back to you.

Okay, so uh I'm gonna go through kind of bullet points.

All right.

Which is pretty fast on a bicycle if you've ever uh done it.

Hopefully, you haven't done 28, but if you know a lot of them go twenty for the most part.

And so reckless operation under our proposed ordinance includes but is not limited to the following.

So grabbing onto a car or back of a pickup truck on even a regular pedal bike is obviously a dangerous uh exercise.

So that is uh under this part, which is wreck reckless operation.

Um next operation, operators of electric low speed scooters should only be used to carry the amount of people they would design for.

We see a lot where they're you know, piggybacking on you got the little thin scooters, and you got two kids on the back, sometimes both of them texting while they're going down the roads, uh texting and driving.

Um not have people hanging on to it or any other vehicle while it is in operation, uh keeping at least one hand on the handlebars, uh ride to the right side of the road, um, except when passing turning left at an intersection, trying to avoid objects.

I think we've had some success with our educational program getting I've seemed to notice that a lot of the scooters and the kids are kind of gravitating toward the right side of the road, which is a good thing.

Um must have uh safety equipment such as brakes, lights, reflectors, and reflective marking markings.

Next, all operators and passengers under 17 age, years of age, must wear a helmet.

Um meeting the minimum safety requirements when operating or riding as a passenger as well on a motorized bicycle, motor-driven cycle, electric assisted bicycle, electric scooter or electric dirt bike.

So basically 16 or under, wear a helmet.

Uh regarding bicycles, um, which are I guess the pedal bicycle we're talking about there, Maurice.

So uh parents or garden shall not allow children under the age of twelve to operate or ride as a passenger on a bicycle without an approved helmet.

Now I know you know I grew up as a kid and started riding a bike at age five or six, you know, and I I I will confess to all of you in the world that I never wore a helmet.

Uh so look, this is subject to discussion how we all feel about what we want to do with it.

Um children weighing less than 40 pounds or less than 40 inches to be a passenger on a bicycle without being properly secured in a restraining seat.

We threw that in there as well.

Again, all that's that's open for discussion.

Operator should obey, as a bicycle already has to do or should do, obey all traffic laws on any parish road, street, sidewalk, or highway.

Such as, and we're specifically including not exceeding 20 miles per hour on these vehicles.

That's the speed limit for an electric scooter or any of these electric type bikes.

And 20 is pretty fast.

Obey stop signs, yield signs, traffic lights, and lanes marking.

Probably the biggest risk and injuries we've seen is when kids are just blowing through stop signs.

You know, you as a driver, and and an important thing to know is this is not just to prevent uh the trauma and physical and mental of a kid being injured, but it's also to prevent the trauma from you or I, as an honest law-abiding driver, having to get involved in one of these things and having a kid pull out in front of you and you hit them, and then you know, you have to live with that.

And that's a big thing too, as well.

We've had to deal with people who have had these crashes that were unavoidable.

They were actually in the right, they were not in the wrong, and yet they gotta live with a kid being injured, or God forbid, worse, you know, kid dead.

So this is also to kind of provide some uh relief to them, because that's that's a pretty bad situation.

Hopefully, none of you have or will be involved in such a thing.

Um where are we?

Okay, yeah, not exceeding 20 miles an hour, bang all the stop signs, of course, not driving on private property without the owner's consent.

I mean, that's you know, you can't trespass now anyway, but uh, you know, some kids I had kid ripping through my yard, you know, and I'm I nicely said, Hey, kid, it's private property.

You know, you really they at some point they need to learn it's private property.