Miami Beach commissioners have voted on a first reading to establish safety regulations for operators of micromobility devices. A final vote is yet to come.

The need for the item, which was sponsored by Commissioner Tanya Katzoff Bhatt, stems from national safety data showing that injuries related to micromobility devices have increased as their use has expanded. Miami Beach officials aim to reduce accidents and protect operators, pedestrians and motorists.

“There are a lot of people who can benefit from using micromobility, whether it’s a bike, an e-bike, an e-scooter, all kinds of different things,” Ms. Bhatt said. “The problem we are facing is that we are a built-out community. We have parking constraints. We have terrible drivers in trucks and cars and motorcycles because we’re in South Florida, and that is just a fact of life here. So, what we are trying to prevent is chaos and carnage on the road, while the rest of the state and really the rest of the country catches up with us on how to operate all these devices in a manner that is safe for everybody as best as we can.”

These measures require all micromobility operators to have a lamp with a white light visible from at least 500 feet to the front and a lamp and reflector with a red light visible from at least 600 feet to the rear from sunset to sunrise.

Also required is a bicycle helmet for operators and passengers under age 16 that’s properly fitted and fastened by a strap and that meets the federal safety standard for bicycle helmets. Also needed: functioning brakes capable of stopping within 25 feet at a speed of 10 miles per hour on dry, level and clean pavement.

The device may not carry more riders than the number for which it’s designed or equipped. However, a trailer or semitrailer may be attached if it’s commercially available and has been designed for that use.

“It’s a little bit delayed from the other things we’ve been doing because it’s taken such a long time to get to this point,” Ms. Bhatt said. “We’ve tried to be very careful about this, but this will take effect a year after. A small section of this would take effect immediately, but some of the bigger things would take effect a year from when we passed this, which would give us time to do outreach to the community to educate them about assistance we can provide to get them helmets, that we can go to schools and give them education, that we can have traffic enforcement between now and the effective date of this of this legislation.”

“The goal is not to be punitive, and officers have the discretion to stop and engage and educate versus stop and write a ticket,” Ms. Bhatt later added.

Commissioner David Suarez said he would “like to codify the fact that our residents get a warning,” to which Ms. Bhatt replied, saying she would go back to have a conversation with the team and “see how we come back for a second reading.”