Trophy Club's New Traffic Rules Aren't Really About E-Bikes. They're About Golf Carts.
"Trophy Club is a community where families are active outdoors, and golf carts are a common mode of transportation in our neighborhoods."
That's Mayor Jeannette Tiffany, explaining why the Town Council spent early 2026 rewriting a chapter of the traffic code most residents had never once looked up. The headline version of that update, the one that made the rounds in local coverage, was about e-bikes and scooters. Helmets. Speed limits. The kind of tech-meets-town-hall story that writes itself.
But read the actual ordinance, and the part that will change more daily routines in Trophy Club has nothing to do with lithium batteries. It's the line about golf carts. Specifically, the new requirement that any rider 14 or younger has to be buckled in with a seatbelt every time the cart leaves the driveway.
If you've lived here more than a summer, you already know why that's the bigger story. E-bikes are new to Trophy Club. Golf carts are the town.
Trophy Club's origin story runs through Ben Hogan, who was recruited in 1972 to design the course and clubhouse the town is named for. The neighborhoods, the streets, the whole layout came after the golf course, not the other way around. Golf carts have been rolling between houses and greens here since before Trophy Club was even incorporated as a town in 1985.
That history is why the mayor's quote lands differently once you know it. She isn't describing a quirky local habit. She's describing the reason Trophy Club looks the way it does: streets built to accommodate a mode of transportation most Texas towns treat as a golf-course-only vehicle.
Which is exactly why a new rule aimed at that specific habit is worth more attention than a rule aimed at e-scooters most families don't own yet.
The Town Council approved the update in late February, and it took effect the same month. It repealed the town's old "Motor-Assisted Scooters, Mini-Motorbikes and Pocket Bikes" article and replaced it with a broader "Micromobility Devices" article under Chapter 12 of the town code. Here's the shift in practical terms.
| Mode | Before Feb. 27, 2026 | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Golf carts | No town-wide seatbelt rule for young passengers | Riders 14 and younger must be secured by a seatbelt |
| E-bikes and e-scooters | Covered loosely under an older scooter-and-minibike ordinance | Sorted by speed into their own regulated category |
| Skateboards, hoverboards, segways | Not named specifically in town code | Explicitly listed as regulated micromobility devices |
| Where and when you can ride | Rules scattered, daytime hours not clearly defined | 15 mph cap on sidewalks and trails, daytime-only riding, must yield to pedestrians |
Gas-powered devices are still banned outright, same as before. What changed is the scope and the specificity.
Police Chief Patrick Arata walked the council through the mechanics during a January work session before the vote. E-bikes now fall into three tiers based on how fast they're built to go: two classes that top out under 20 miles per hour, and a third that can hit up to 28. That distinction matters if you or your kid is riding one of the faster models around a neighborhood loop, because the ordinance caps micromobility devices at 15 miles per hour on any sidewalk, trail, or public property regardless of what the bike itself is capable of.
Helmets are required, but only for children. The ordinance defines a child as anyone under 14, and the helmet rule is written specifically for that age group riding any covered device, not for adult riders. Lighting standards apply across the board, and every device is restricted to daytime hours, defined as the half hour before sunrise to the half hour after sunset, unless another provision says otherwise. If your family's evening bike loop around the neighborhood has been drifting later into dusk, that's now something to watch.
Here's the detail that got less coverage but affects more households. The ordinance adds this: any occupant 14 years old or younger riding in a motorized cart must be secured by a safety belt. The town's own description of the update says the provision brings golf cart passenger safety in line with what's already expected in a regular car. Town Manager Brandon Wright put the broader goal this way: the updates are meant to protect residents, particularly children, whether they're riding a scooter, an e-bike, or traveling in a motorized cart.
That's a reasonable-sounding sentence until you picture how golf carts actually get used in Trophy Club. Short hops to a friend's driveway. A ride to Trophy Club Park for a Saturday morning practice. Loading up for a Friday night at the Community Pool on Parkview Drive. None of those trips have historically involved anyone reaching for a seatbelt, because most Trophy Club golf carts don't get treated like cars. They get treated like an extension of the sidewalk.
The new rule doesn't ban any of that. It just puts a specific, enforceable standard on the part of the routine that had never had one.
This is the part worth reading twice if you have kids who ride anything covered by the ordinance. Violations carry a fine of up to $200 per offense, and repeat juvenile offenders can be required to appear before a municipal court judge, with a parent present.
The ordinance goes further than just penalizing the rider. It states plainly that it is unlawful for a parent to allow or permit a child to ride a micromobility device in violation of the rules, and it builds in a presumption that if a child is out riding, the parent allowed it. In practice, that shifts where the responsibility sits. It's not framed as a kid getting caught without a helmet. It's framed as a household being expected to know the rule before the ride happens.
None of this came out of nowhere. The town conducted a traffic study before the council took up the issue, and that study fed directly into a January work session where the specifics, including Chief Arata's three-tier bike breakdown, were laid out publicly before any vote. The council wasn't reacting to a single incident. It was closing a gap between a town code written for mini-motorbikes and pocket bikes and a neighborhood where e-bikes, e-scooters, and decades of golf cart habit are all sharing the same streets and trails.
That's worth knowing if you assumed this was some kind of crackdown. It reads more like the town catching its own paperwork up to a pattern of daily life that had already been happening for years, golf carts included.
If a golf cart is part of your family's routine, whether that's the loop to Harmony Park, a ride toward Independence Park, or the short trip to the pool on a summer evening, the seatbelt rule now applies every time a rider is 14 or younger. If your household has an e-bike, check which of the three speed classes it falls into and plan trail and sidewalk riding around the 15 mph cap and daytime-only window. And if your kids are the ones doing the riding, the new presumption clause means the conversation about helmets and seatbelts is worth having before the next ride, not after a citation.
Trophy Club didn't get less golf-cart-friendly this year. It got more specific about what safe golf-cart use actually looks like, which is a different thing entirely, and arguably overdue for a town that's been running carts down its streets since before the town itself existed.
If you're weighing a move to a neighborhood where a golf cart in the driveway is just part of the picture, or you're already here and thinking about what's next, Trisha Atwood knows this town well enough to talk through more than square footage. Let's connect.
Stay up to date on the latest real estate trends.
A Buyer's Guide to Earnest Money in Texas Real Estate.
A Closer Look at Life in Carillon, Southlake, Texas.
A Texas Buyer's Guide to Escrow, From Closing to Your Monthly Payment.