Destin council unanimously approves e-bike safety ordinance on first reading

After a year and a half of research and drafting, the Destin City Council last Monday unanimously approved new regulations for electric bicycles, motorized scooters and other micromobility devices on a first reading, moving the city closer to establishing local enforcement tools for a growing safety concern.

• Ordinance 26-19-CC amends Chapter 19.5 of the city’s code of ordinances and spells out operating rules, parking requirements and a tiered penalty structure for violations. The measure passed and will return for a second reading at a future council meeting. Councilwoman Sandy Trammell sponsored the ordinance and made the motion to approve it.

Jim Wood, who chairs the city’s Public Works and Public Safety Committee, presented the ordinance and said the effort had been 18 months in the making. The committee finished its revisions on June 9 and recommended the ordinance be forwarded to the full council.

“This ordinance is about e-bikes, class one, two, and three,” Wood said. “It’s not about walkers. It’s not about joggers. It’s not about regular bicycles.”

Wood said the ordinance had already been passed in Crestview and Niceville but that enforcement in those cities had been limited. He said he expected a different approach in Destin.

“In the end, this is just gonna provide our law enforcement team the opportunities, the flexibility, and the discretion to enforce as needed,” Wood said.

The ordinance defines careless operation to include riding with more than one person on a device not designed for it, using a cellphone or wearing earbuds while operating, and traveling at speeds not reasonable for the conditions. Operators must yield to pedestrians and deliver an audible signal before passing them. Helmets are required for operators 16 and under.

One of the more notable provisions requires e-bike and scooter operators to travel in the same direction as vehicular traffic when riding on sidewalks where sidewalks exist on both sides of the road. Wood said the idea came out of a public e-bike forum held in October and was designed to address the lack of dedicated bike lanes on many Destin streets.

• “Many of our roads, we did not put bike lanes on,” Wood said. “And as the safety chairman, I was not willing to move all the e-bikes to the roads, not having those bike lanes.”

Wood said the ordinance does not include specific speed limits because radar equipment cannot reliably measure e-bike speeds on sidewalks. Instead, the language requires operators to ride at speeds “reasonably prudent for the current conditions or environment.”

“We learned long ago in doing our research that speed limits require a radar, and unfortunately, radar fans are pretty wide,” Wood said. “So when you’re trying to get a bicycle on the sidewalk, what you actually get is the car in the lane next to it.”

The ordinance also prohibits modifications that allow e-bikes to exceed their designed top speed. Capt. Jason Fulghum of the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, who worked with Wood on the ordinance for the full 18 months, told the council it can be difficult for deputies to distinguish between legal e-bikes and modified ones.

“Some of the electric motorcycles have pegs instead of pedals, so you can tell that way,” Fulghum said. “If it’s one that’s modified or it’s one that has the pedals, it’s very difficult for us to be able to tell whether it’s capable of doing 28 miles an hour or capable of doing 55 miles an hour.”

Wood said the state could help by mandating brighter-colored classification stickers on e-bikes. He said he purchased an e-bike in Gulf Breeze about a year ago that had a silver class-two sticker on a silver bike.

• “Unless I’m standing right next to that bike, I can’t see that thing,” Wood said.

The penalties laid out in the ordinance begin with a written warning for a first offense. A second offense carries a $150 fine, a third costs $350, and a fourth or subsequent violation brings a $500 penalty.

Wood noted that the majority of recent crashes between e-bikes and vehicles in the area had been the fault of vehicle drivers, not e-bike operators. Crash data included in the staff report listed incidents from January 2025 through March 2026 involving collisions in parking lots, at crosswalks and on roadways.

He also noted the Florida Legislature had passed an e-bike bill this session, but the governor vetoed it. The bill would have established a 15 mph speed limit near pedestrians, created a task force and amended the state’s crash reporting form to better track e-bike incidents. Wood said he hoped the legislature would revisit the issue next year.

Councilman Chatham Morgan urged the sheriff’s office to prioritize early enforcement, saying he had seen “appallingly dangerous” riding by young people on Destin’s back roads.

• “What I really don’t want to happen … is the community comes in here and demands that we do something,” Morgan said. “I would rather prevent this on the front end with education … and with enforcement.”

Councilman Kevin Schmidt asked that educational materials be distributed to schools as soon as possible.

“I would highly ask … to prioritize immediately the most basic elementary school flyer that has the top two, three, four items visually to give out to the schools,” Schmidt said.

Wood said the committee planned to distribute flyers to major employers, update the city’s website and work with churches, schools and youth organizations to spread the word. He said if the committee needed to cover the cost of printing and mailing the materials, it would.

Wood recommended giving the ordinance about a year after passage to collect data on enforcement and education before considering any changes.

“Is this ordinance going to be perfect? No. It’s a starting point,” Wood said. “This is a process.”