New legislation will affect mopeds across South Carolina

A set of new additions to the South Carolina Code of Laws will affect moped drivers across the state. Beginning November 19, the small two-wheeled vehicles will require a license and registration with the Department of Motor Vehicles, in a similar fashion to standard passenger vehicles. Mopeds will not need insurance and are exempt from ad valorem property tax.

“They were pretty easily stolen, before, and if they are stolen, they’re kind of hard to identify because there’s no license tag,” said South Carolina Attorney General’s Office Communication Director Robert Kittle.

There has been speculation that the new law will make golf cart violations easier to pursue by law enforcement. Golf cart, low speed vehicle, and moped rules all lie under Title 56 of the South Carolina Code of Laws. Article Four exhibits the penalties much more explicitly than the last iteration of the law, leading to the belief that police officers can easily pin golf cart offenses.

Charleston Police Department Lieutenant James Byrne said that the law deals with mopeds, and if the hypothesis is true, Team 5 will not necessarily pursue golf cart offenses with any new vigor.

“I don’t imagine that there will be a great shift in what we do,” said Byrne. “Our enforcement of traffic laws in both Team 5 locally and the City of Charleston overall, is geared by statistics, is driven and shifted and steered by data. And the data do not support, at least in Team 5, that we have a great problem with golf carts right now.”