Are electric skateboards legal in Tennessee?

Each row is the statute's own content, reduced to plain wording where it is long and quoted directly where the exact words matter. The section in the last column is a link to the text.

• Tenn. Code § 55-8-101(21), (41), (50) — Definitions — electric scooter, motor vehicle, pedestrian. Legal publisher reproducing the codified text, read 2026-09-24.
  The Tennessee Code is published through a commercial service we could not read directly; FindLaw reproduces the codified text (current through January 2, 2024). We also searched the whole of Title 55 in a 2022 published copy of the code: “skateboard” appears only in a definition of “pedestrian child” used for driver-licence penalties.

One or more rows above say Legal publisher reproducing the codified text: the official server was unreachable when we read it, and we used a legal publisher's reproduction of the codified text instead. We would rather tell you that than present a copy as the original.

The same four questions, across every jurisdiction whose primary sources we have read. Each row links to its own page and its own citations.

The spread is the point. These are neighbouring jurisdictions regulating the same object, and they do not agree on what it is, how fast it may go, who may ride it, or whether it may be ridden at all. A rider who crosses a state line is, quite often, subject to a different legal category rather than a stricter version of the same one — which is why a single national answer to this question does not exist and why anyone offering you one has stopped reading the law.

It also explains why so many rows say the device is unaddressed. Most vehicle codes were written before this machine existed, and a legislature that has not revisited them has not thereby permitted anything — it has left the question to a general classification and to your city.

• It is not legal advice, and it never says you may ride. It says what the statute says, and links it.
• It does not cover municipal law. Cities regulate sidewalks, parks, paths and often these devices by name. Those rules sit on top of everything above.
• It does not cover private property, insurance, or what happens after an accident.
• It may be out of date. Every source carries the day we read it. A statute amended since then will not have updated itself here.

Other jurisdictions: the full list. Alabama · Alaska · Arizona · Arkansas

Are electric skateboards legal in Tennessee?

No law we can find defines an electric skateboard. What applies instead is a general vehicle classification and, in practice, your municipality. Tennessee writes the electric scooter, the e-bike and the motorized bicycle out of the definition of a motor vehicle by name. The electric skateboard is not on the list, and the traffic code’s definitions never mention it. What reaches a board is the general definition, and your municipality.

Do I need a helmet in Tennessee?

No rule naming this device addresses helmets in the sources we have read for Tennessee. Your municipality may have one.

How fast am I allowed to go in Tennessee?

No speed limit specific to this device appears in the sources we have read for Tennessee.

Does this cover city rules?

No. This page reads state or provincial law only. Municipal codes frequently add rules — on sidewalks, parks and paths especially — and where the state has written nothing, the city has written everything.

How do I check this myself?

Open the links in the sources below. Every row in the table above names the section it comes from, and every source shows the date we read it. That is the whole point of the page: you should not have to take our word for it.