Veh. Code, § 38604 · Chapter 8. Recreational Off-Highway Vehicles
Veh. Code, § 38604
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) A person operating a recreational off-highway vehicle on lands, as described in Section 38001, shall not ride with a passenger, unless the passenger, while seated upright with their back against the seatback, can grasp the occupant handhold with the seatbelt and shoulder belt or safety harness properly fastened.
(b) For purposes of this chapter, “occupant handhold” means any factory or aftermarket device grasped by an occupant to provide support and to assist in keeping arms and hands within the recreational off-highway vehicle. The steering wheel shall be considered an occupant handhold for the recreational off-highway vehicle operator.
(c) Occupant handholds shall be designed to allow the recreational off-highway vehicle passenger to exit the vehicle without interference from the handholds.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2019, Ch. 469, Sec. 16. (SB 785) Effective January 1, 2020.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH§ionNum=38604.
- Text hash
- sha256 d571d02edde7eb851db69d67f754ef9e63e153eb795e190d2847470d11e64cb5
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
This section cites
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Vehicle Code
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.