Man hits bump in the road with electric car




UP  TO SPEED—Richard  Ardi  of  Oak Park  loves  driving  his electric car, except the law does not allow the vehicle on streets with a 35 mph or higher speed limit.

UP TO SPEED—Richard Ardi of Oak Park loves driving his electric car, except the law does not allow the vehicle on streets with a 35 mph or higher speed limit.


An Oak Park man found a way to reduce auto emissions and the amount of money he pays for fuel, only to learn that he was breaking the law.

Richard Ardi has been driving his two children from the family’s Chambord home to Brookside Elementary and Medea Creek Middle schools, as well as to soccer practice, in a neighborhood electric vehicle (NEV), a lowspeed electric car. He also runs local errands in the blueandwhite golf cart-looking vehicle. Ardi said he’s put 1,000 miles on the vehicle in the past month.

But Ardi was recently informed by a police officer that it’s illegal to drive an electric car on streets with speed limits higher than 35 mph.

Ardi wasn’t stopped while he was in the elctric car but while he was in his regular vehicle. He mentioned to the officer that he had an electric vehicle and the officer informed him he was breaking the law.

Certain stretches of Sunnycrest Drive and Kanan Road have higher speed limits, which prevents Ardi from getting to such places as the Oak Park Community Center and the grocery store. He said he found ways to get around some of the higher speed limit streets, but not all.

“Everywhere I go in the car I get a thumbs up from people, but I’m in violation of the law,” he said.

Ardi attended last week’s Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council meeting to ask for help in appealing the county to change the NEV restrictions. County Supervisor Linda Parks, who was at the meeting, agreed to look into the issue. She suggested that speed limits be changed in certain areas to allow free travel within the community.

Management at Oak Park Apartments, on Lindero Canyon Road and Bowfield, and at Kanan Road and Golden Eagle, use the electric carts for community maintenance, sometimes driving on higher speed roads, said property manager Jay Rey-Hipolito. The development has been looking into purchasing five or six new electric vehicles at $17,000 each, he said.

“Of course we want to comply, but right now we have no other way to service residents,” Rey-Hipolito said.

State law includes a provision giving local jurisdictions the ability to establish their own vehicle rules, said Capt. Bill Flannigan of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“It’s a relatively new process, but if there’s a will to do that you can provide lanes and signage,” Flannigan said.

Ventura County Transportation Director Butch Britt said he hadn’t heard of an increase in the number of county residents using electric vehicles but that he knew they were used in some smaller communities.

“It’s an interesting idea that maybe in the future we’ll see more of, but for now, with the volumes and speeds of traffic on the roads, there are some serious concerns,” Britt said.

Electric cars require their own lanes, which would most likely be shared with the bicycle lane, Britt said.

One California city that has implemented an electric vehicle transportation plan is Lincoln, just north of Fresno, according to Britt. The plan provides for safe access to downtown and other commercial areas, as well as charging facilities, striping, signage, parking and education to safely accommodate electric vehicle travel.

“I think the way of the future is where you’re at,” MAC member Todd Haines told Ardi.

The carts can also be seen tooling around certain neighborhoods in Malibu.

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