A Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) is a speed limited battery electric vehicle (usually 25 miles per hour in the U.S.A.) and restricted by law to operation on roads with speed limits not exceeding 35 MPH. Often such vehicles are not purpose built but instead are slightly modified golf carts. 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 standard vehicles is almost non-existent.
Such vehicles are appropriate for communities that provide separate routes for these vehicles or generally accommodate slow speed traffic. Some retirement and golf club communities are so designed, but most modern communities within the USA are designed to separate residential neighborhoods from shopping centers, connecting them with relatively high speed thoroughfares with the expectation that a full size sedan or light truck will be used for transport.
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