The Tisbury Select Board unanimously denied Island Adventure Rentals a request to rent mopeds, citing safety concerns for moped drivers.
The board denied the request during a public hearing held on Wednesday, June 28.
Island Adventure Rentals has rented mopeds in the past, but owner Erin Leone told the board that she had to close the business during the COVID pandemic, and kept it closed for personal reasons. The application was for a new moped rental license.
She said that in the past, she has had no accidents from moped rentals. “I have a very good track record,” Leone said, adding she has a test track on the business property, located on 19 Beach Road.
Board member John Cahill underscored the number of accidents that involved mopeds on the Island. He displayed a list of 174 moped accidents involving an ambulance that occurred over a 10-year span on Martha’s Vineyard.
Board member Christina Colarusso, who has had to administer first aid at moped accident scenes in Chilmark, also pointed out safety concerns regarding the mopeds.
“This conversation is one piece of a bigger conversation about safety on Martha’s Vineyard,” she said, adding that Nantucket is also having a conversation around safety with bicycles.
Recently, a moped accident in Oak Bluffs led to a mother and a daughter breaking bones. Also, local state lawmakers have filed a bill aimed at banning mopeds in Oak Bluffs.
Additionally, Cahill said the business location on Beach Road was “very constrained,” with a lot of traffic, to which Leone said safety measures were available to keep moped test drivers from hitting the main road.
Longtime Island moped critic Timothy Rich, the chair of the Moped Action Committee, also spoke out against the request at Wednesday’s hearing. A concern he brought to the table was whether the business had liability insurance in case a moped it rented was involved in an accident leading to something like property damage, or personal injury to others. Leone said she planned to get the insurance after being awarded a license, although other necessary insurances were ready.
After further discussion, the board voted to deny the license.
Great job Tisbury, now we need to ban all moped rentals!
Absolutely! It is about time we care more about life and the safety of our visitors than money. the roads were dangerous ten years ago, but today with no one paying attention to speed limits and an overload of vehicular traffic on our narrow roads, it is imperative that without exception mopeds are no longer available for ‘RENTAL’.
All mopeds/scooters and these electric bikes should be banned from the entire island. The roads were not designed for them. They all pose a major traffic Hazzard on the island.
It’s a good start.
Woohoo!! Thanks, Tisbury Selectboard for DOING something!!
Thank you, Tisbury. I believe this business was owned by Jason Leone, Erin’s late husband, who passed in 2019. I don’t know if they were co-owners, but was there any history there of any problems, going a little further back with this business being owned by this family? I don’t know the answer to this and assume that the wife took the business over after his passing. They may have had a stellar record. Regardless, people who rent these mopeds have no idea that they are taking their lives into their hands, and some have died or have been seriously injured. Often I’ve seen tourists riding mopeds not following the rules, or not adequately being told the rules, making it more difficult for drivers to navigate the roads around them. The island roads are not built to accommodate these. Let’s get them banned on island completely.
Get rid of the cars too.
Bring back the horses! ???
What about banning electric bikes some of which go much faster than a moped and actually caused a death on Nantucket last week. How many people have died from cigarettes on the island over the last 10 years? How many deaths in car accidents? How many have drowned while swimming? Two deaths from jumping off Big Bridge last year, why isn’t that banned? Where does it end? Life is dangerous. We all have free will. No one is forcing you to rent a moped or go swimming or drive a car or buy cigarettes or jump off the bridge. These are personal choices best left to the person.
No, John, but the accident caused by an inexperienced moped driver on a winding road in an unfamiliar town might kill you or your loved one.
Or an inexperienced newly licensed car driver.
John, I think the difference between mopeds and cigarettes is the level of public awareness. The dangers of tobacco have been heavily discussed for a long time. I would assume anyone who picks up smoking nowadays is at least making an informed choice. There are blunt warnings on the product.
With mopeds, I truly don’t believe that people—especially tourists who are unfamiliar with our roads—understand the degree of risk or the Island’s history of accidents. They could look it up, sure, but that requires knowing there’s something to be concerned about in the first.
Some people smoke all their lives and live to 103!
Once again John, I will point out that out of the millions of jumps from the big bridge, there have been 2 deaths in 91 years.
Those 2 deaths were people who could not swim, occurred at night, and on a swiftly moving tide.
Jumping off the bridge sounds pretty safe to me.
To compare that incident to mopeds is ludicrous.
As far as I can tell, there have been 3 deaths on the Vineyard from Cape Air crashes alone in the last 15 years. I think there is little doubt that more people jump off the bridge than fly Cape Air.
More people also jump off the bridge than rent mopeds.
Rather than ban jumping off the bridge for some reason or ban Cape Air flights, lets go with the statistically most dangerous thing you can do as a tourist here. Namely rent a moped.
Here come the Lefties with all their job killing rules and regulations.
Regulations don’t kill jobs, inexperienced riders on mopeds kill jobs.
Excellent decision Town of Tiz. Am proud of our town’s elected leaders to guard safety of visitors to our island. I was involved in an accident years ago when a moped driver lost control owing to gravel on the road and careened into my car. The lovely week-end planned by the victim and his three friends, each on their own rented moped, ended badly with the injured spending time in hospital rather than having fun. Meanwhile I had out of state friends in my damaged vehicle and we were too shaken up, by this incident to enjoy our time together either. Mopeds are far too dangerous on our crowded summer roads.
19 Beach Rd is across from the hospital…. how is that even possible? i think they have the wrong address….
Im glad these deathtraps are getting gone…. rent cars!!!!!!!!!! or bikes…… 🙂
Dolores, the hospital is in Oak Bluffs. Tisbury has its own Beach Road.
That is 19 Beach Road Oak Bluffs. The Moped place is 19 Beach Road Vineyard Haven. I’ve made that mistake a time or two too. ?
First the came for the mopeds.
Then they came for the e-bikes.
And then for the poor shmucks on bicycles.
Watch out or cars that don’t recharge on energy generated by coal fired power plants will be next.
How they will still let motorcycles to roam on the most precious of islands befuddles me.
Everyone should be free to determine their own cause of death. No?
Do I have the analogy right, Jackie?
Bill– since the only coal fired power plant in New England is in Bow New Hampshire, and only operates for about 6 days a year, we don’t have to worry about cars that run on coal fired electricity .
Here is a real time link to the actual power generation that is occurring in the New England power grid.
https://www.eia.gov/dashboard/newengland/overview
I am looking at it at 11:59 am Tuesday July 4. —–coal is at ZERO % — that means no electricity is being generated by coal , as is usually the case.
It never gets above 1/2 of one % .
But what we do have to worry about is that people who actually have an IQ over 100 believe the total BS that is spewing out of the mouths of right wing media agenda driven idiots.
It rots the brains of the general public to the point that they are willing to spread this kind of disinformation.
I remember reading years ago towns could not ban mopeds due to State regulations? I’m against mopeds but I surely don’t want our town to lose a multimillion dollar lawsuit for depriving a business their rights.
Do you want more rules and regulations?
If we have the right to bear arms, which are responsible for so many deaths, then certainly we have the right bear mopeds.
They so rarely kill non moped renters.
Do we have a right to rent guns on MV? Your arguments are ridiculous.
Renting guns is a great idea for the island. Cape Gun Works in Hyannis has a booming business doing just that.
r scott- don’t feed the troll.
You are correct. It first has to be approved at a town meeting, and then the state legislature. So I am surprised this happened. Oak Bluffs tried a few years ago and it did not pass in the legislature. There currently seems to be an island wide effort to ban mopeds.
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