Neighborhood Electric Vehicles in Du Quoin?

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ With the simple eloquence that is his trademark, Du Quoin wanter commissioner Rex Duncan Monday night encouraged fellow and sister commissioners to revisit the issue of allowing Neighborhood Electric Vehicles on the streets of Du Quoin.

Duncan first broached the subject in February 2007 and a well-written ordinance was tabled as a community was not yet pushed to the brink of action because of rising prices.

On Monday, Duncan explained the cause and effect of drivers cutting oil consumption. "Americans drove 10 billion fewer miles (this summer) and the price of gasoline has come down," he said.

Duncan said the only stumbling block at this writing is the state's insistence on keeping NEV's off of state highways. Mayor John Rednour jumped in and asked, "What the difference between that (an NEV) and a bicycle." Or, for that matter, a skateboard or John Deere riding mower.

City attorney Aaron Atkins said for the past three years the Village of Willisville has been using an electric vehicle to read meters in the community.

The council decided to wipe the dust off the 2007 ordinance, ask the state about allowing NEVs to at least cross state highways, and revisit the whole issue at an upcoming meeting.

A Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) is an American term for a speed limited battery electric vehicle (usually 25 miles per hour in the U.S.A.) restricted by law to operation on roads with speed limits not exceeding 35 MPH. These speed restrictions are required because of a lack of federally mandated safety equipment and features which NEV's can not accommodate because of their design.

To satisfy requirements for operation on streets, NEVs are equipped with three-point seat belts, windshields and windshield wipers, running lights, headlights, brake lights, reflectors, rear view mirrors, and turn signals.

In many cases, doors may be optional, and crash protection from other vehicles is almost non-existent. However, some makers are starting to use doors and steel impact beams.

The Du Quoin city council has before it Ordinance No. 2007-002-04--part of Du Quoin's ongoing Green Communities initiative, which would permit use of the vehicles on the streets of Du Quoin. The electric vehicles--more than a "golf cart" are typically electric, certainly fuel efficient and are a staple of retirement communities and environmentally protected areas.

These vehicles are appropriate for communities that provide separate routes for these vehicles or generally accommodate slow speed traffic such as traditional "grid" street plans found in older urban areas. Some retirement and golf club communities are specifically designed, even including an additional "mini garage" in the house designs. Community designs built upon the concepts of new urbanism are often suitable for these vehicles

Most modern communities within the USA are designed to separate residential neighborhoods, shopping centers, and places of employment, secondary education sites, and even recreation areas, connecting them with relatively high speed thoroughfares exceeding that available to NEVs with the expectation that a more traditional motor vehicle will be used for transport.

The Du Quoin ordinance has a number of provisions unique to Du Quoin. For instance, NEVs cannot be operated on state or county highways through or around Du Quoin. During downtown use they could not cross larger streets like South Washington unless they cross at a stop light intersection. You must have an Illinois driver's license to operate an NEV and the city's ordinance will prescribe a minimum of safety equipment that would be required on such a vehicle.

In an electric vehicle (EV), batteries and other energy storage devices store the electricity that powers the electric motor in the vehicle. EV batteries must be replenished by plugging in the vehicle to a power source. Whether charged with an on-board charger or through an external outlet, EV's are powered from the electricity grid.

EV's are available for a variety of applications, from small neighborhood electric vehicles (NEV's) to heavy-duty buses.

Because of their range limitations, based on battery size and vehicle weight, the vehicles are uniquely suited to short-distance, high-use applications that demand frequent starts and stops. In its most recent analysis, DOE estimates that almost 72,000 electric vehicles were in use in 2006.

Duncan said allowing NEVs would drive the ethic of shopping locally versus going out of town.