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RALEIGH — Moped and scooter owners could be required to register their bikes with the DMV and buy insurance under a bill the Senate is expected to approve Tuesday.

The measure was given tentative approval on 29-19 vote Thursday. If it passes a second Senate vote Tuesday, the bill would go to the House for consideration.

“In these hard economic times, you’re taking away a low-cost transportation option,” said Michael Hull, a co-owner of Scooter King USA on Norwalk Street in Greensboro. Forcing riders to carry insurance and register the bikes will put them out of reach for some riders.

Already, Hull said, he has to turn away customers who need basic transportation but can’t afford $1,100 for a new scooter, which will get 117 miles on 1 gallon of gas.

Currently, riders don’t need a tag, license or insurance to drive mopeds and scooters on city streets.

“I don’t think it would be overly burdensome,” Sen. Tony Rand, a Cumberland County Democrat, told his colleagues during Thursday’s floor debate. “It’s a matter of personal responsibility.”

Rand said even bikes with small engines could injure someone or damage personal property.

As defined by state law, a moped is a vehicle with two or three wheels that does not go faster than 30 mph on a level surface and has an engine “that does not exceed 50 cubic centimeters piston displacement.”

Should Rand’s measure become law, owners would have to buy insurance and register their bikes with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The DMV does not currently register mopeds, said spokeswoman Marge Howell.

“We’d have to create a new system,” she said. That system, she said, would likely require moped owners to pay a registration fee. Also, she said that by registering the bikes, owners would likely be subject to motor vehicle taxes levied by local governments, such as the $10-per-year charge Greensboro puts on cars owned by city residents.

Susan Valauri, a lobbyist with Nationwide Insurance, said a homeowner with another vehicle would likely be able to add a moped to their current policy for little or no cost. She said her company had estimated a standalone moped policy would cost $82.72 per year. A spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Insurance confirmed that estimate.

Those rates could be higher depending on someone’s driving history, Valauri said, but insurers were unsure how they might set them for someone who rode only a moped and didn’t hold a license.

“If you don’t have to be licensed, then how do I have any record of your driving history to assess the risk?” she said.

Objections raised on the Senate floor came from members who worried requiring insurance for mopeds and scooters would be problematic for constituents who lost their licenses after a drunken-driving conviction. The bikes, the senators said, were the last available mode of transportation for some people trying to support their families.

“My understanding was they can’t get insurance because they don’t have a license,” Sen. Stan Bingham, a Davidson County Republican, said on the floor.

Hull, the moped dealer, said he rarely sells to people who have lost their license because of a drunken-driving charge. More often, he said, parents bought the bikes to teach budding drivers responsibility and college students who use them to get to classes and to jobs.

“They need basic transportation, and you’re taking that away from them,” Hull said.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com