The Standard reported recently about the upcoming hotel, LBL is supposed to allow street legal side by side UTVs to travel on the Trace. We contacted Scott Raymond, the Public Affairs Officer for the Forest Service at Land Between the Lakes (LBL) National Recreation Area. He told the Standard, “LBL has been discussing the options for allowing Special Purpose Vehicles on our roadways. Specifically in conjunction with our local counties’ (Trigg and Lyon) recent decision to allow streetlegal SPVs.” It’s been legal on roadways in TN since Governor Bill Lee signed it into law in April of 2025. Side-by-sides (SxS) or UTVs can be street-legal in Tennessee on specific roads, primarily county roads with speed limits of up to 45 mph. To drive them on public roads, the vehicle must be titled, registered, insured, and equipped with DOTapproved accessories. Operators must hold a valid driver.s license and liability insurance.
The law states in part, UTVs are defined as: a low speed vehicle, a medium speed vehicle, a Class I offhighway vehicle, a Class II off-highway vehicle, or an all-terrain vehicle. To operate a UTV: it must be titled and registered, it must be covered by liability insurance, the operator must be 16 years of age or older and must possess a valid driver license, which does not include a permit, the operator and ALL passengers must be wearing a helmet, no child requiring a child passenger restraint system is allowed to be transported, it must be operated ONLY during daylight hours, which includes the thirty minutes before dawn and the thirty minutes after dusk. If the UTV is equipped with any of the following from a manufacturer, or added later, then they must be operational and utilized at all times while operating the vehicle: brakes, at least 2 taillights, stoplights, and headlights, two turn signal lamps or other devices meeting requirement, a horn meeting requirements, a roll bar, seat belts for each seat, a manufacturer-installed or equivalent spark arrester, a manufacturer-installed or equivalent muffler in proper working order and properly connected to the vehicle.s exhaust system, a windshield, with or without wipers, except, that if the vehicle is not equipped with a windshield, then the operator and each passenger shall wear glasses containing impactresistant lenses, safety goggles, or a face shield.
Dover Police Chief Scott Bickford said as long as they comply with state law they are allowed in the City Limits but not at City Park (Lick Creek). Sheriff Frankie Gray said the same about county roads, they will comply with state law. Raymond said, “Any changes to our current travel management policies on LBL will be shared as soon as final decisions are made. We do hear a lot of requests from visitors about this topic and believe it could be a popular change at LBL…