An electric boost

Are e-bikes dangerous?

Southern California has seen some recent deaths involving e-bikes. Each has caused a stir across the community regarding e-bike safety, especially for youth.

In June, a 15-year-old student in Encinitas, California — a beach town in San Diego County — was riding an e-bike on the street when he was struck and killed by a van.

Shortly after, the city passed a state of emergency calling for more e-bike education and enforcement.

Troy Kingman — the father of Brodee Braxton Champlain-Kingman — spoke about his son and the importance of road safety education during the council meeting.

“It is essential that we all work together to enforce these rules and educate our children,” Kingman said during the meeting. “These are technically 'motor cycles'... There needs to be proper education. There have to be rules and tests that our children must pass before they can step out on these.”

The city of Carlsbad also passed a state of emergency about e-bikes last year after a 35-year-old mother, Christine Embree, and her 16-month-old daughter, Delilah, were hit by a car that ran a stop sign. The woman died. Her daughter survived.

Bob Embree, Christine’s husband, spoke at that Carlsbad City Council meeting. The firefighter and paramedic had spoken to the council just three weeks before with concerns about speeding cars.

“I don’t want anyone to have to suffer how I’ve suffered,” he said during the meeting. “We were supposed to live 40 more years together. We were supposed to grow old and gray. My daughter, who’s running, around doesn’t have a mom. No one should have to suffer. Please don’t let my wife’s loss of life go in vain.”

The driver who hit the woman was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter earlier this year.

But cars aren't the only safety risk when it comes to e-bikes. In January 2021, 12-year-old Molly Steinsapir was riding an e-bike down a hill with a friend in Pacific Palisades — a neighborhood in west L.A. — when they lost control and were thrown to the concrete. Steinsapir lost consciousness and died in the hospital a few weeks later due to several brain surgeries.

Her parents filed a lawsuit against the e-bike company Rad Power Bikes claiming the bicycle had faulty brakes, but the suit was dismissed earlier this year.

What counts as an e-bike?

When considering e-bike regulation, one of the difficult aspects is the wide range of e-bike designs and models.

E-bikes come in three different classes that specify things like maximum speed and pedal assistance. But with so many manufacturers around the world, the catalog of “e-bikes” is vast.

McCamy from Calbike said it’s a bit of a “Wild West” situation seeing so many different models of e-bikes that at times go outside the three standard classes.

“[Manufacturers] who are selling e-bikes, they’re putting class two stickers on them perhaps, but there are some models out there that you can switch between modes,” McCamy said. “So you might think you're buying a class two bike for a 15-year-old, but there's a way to just switch it to class three. Some of those bikes even have an off-road mode that can go higher speeds.”

Albert Menduno has witnessed this gray area firsthand during his 10 years working in bike shops. He currently works for The Pro's Closet in Colorado.

He said he’s seen a growing number of e-bikes pass through the shop that can’t even be repaired since they come from overseas and aren’t made with standard parts.

Usually, these e-bikes coming from other countries are cheaper than what’s available locally. An average e-bike in the U.S. costs a few thousand dollars, but some e-bikes from other online retailers overseas only cost a few hundred dollars.

“A lot of people buy it on Amazon and they assemble it themselves, which in itself can be dangerous, not knowing how to make sure it's secure,” Menduno said. “And then when it wears out, they come into a bike shop and then they realize that it's kind of a cheap one. But now they're stuck with it and they can't get it repaired.”

Edwin Borbon, a senior legislative assistant for Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, said they’ve discussed potential ways to regulate manufacturers — especially since users have found ways to tamper with the settings to increase speeds.

“What we've learned is that the cap speed is just programming,” Borbon said. “Anyone who has IT experience or knows about software programming can easily tamper with and increase the speed cap — which is illegal under current law — but it also is happening.”

Tracking e-bike safety is also not a simple task.

A 2022 report from the National Transportation Safety Board found that accurately tracking e-scooter and e-bike fatalities is challenging.

The report found there’s a lack of complete, consistent and reliable data, which makes it nearly impossible to identify crashes involving e-bikes.

But a September 2023 report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found an increase in e-bike and e-scooter deaths and injuries from 2017 to 2022.

Researchers also found that injuries associated with these types of vehicles jumped up 21% from 2021 to 2022. For e-bikes specifically, nearly half of all estimated e-bike injuries from 2017 to 2022 occurred in 2022 alone.

Collisions with motor vehicles were the leading cause of death associated with e-bikes, accounting for 58 of the 104 reported deaths, although the organization concedes that reporting is ongoing and incomplete.

Data from the California Highway Patrol released in August 2023 claims that out of the 9,600 bicycle crashes in 2022, at least 225 involved an e-bike.

That number is up from the 80 e-bike crashes California saw in 2021, according to CHP officials.

But e-bike advocates argue these injuries and deaths can't be attributed to e-bikes themselves — or even to the people riding them.

“Cities like Carlsbad and Encinitas both had pretty high-profile deaths of people who were riding an e-bike, but they were hit by frickin cars,” McCamy said. “You could give me a license. You could take me to class. It will not stop me from dying if someone plows into me.”

But that doesn’t mean safety measures aren't important. Jose Jimenez is a program director for ActiveSGV, an organization that operates an e-bike share in the San Gabriel Valley. He said that in addition to operating their fleet of over 800 e-bikes, they also make sure to prioritize e-bike safety and education.

“ActiveSGV does bicycle education classes, and we do safe routes to school programming with local school districts,” he said. “We actually go to different school districts and teach all their kids bicycle education through different programming as far as pedestrian safety and so on.”

Local infrastructure makes it worse

For e-bike advocates, the problem is clear and simple: busy streets.

That’s where CalBike’s Complete Streets Campaign comes in.

Complete Streets is a call for all California roads to be safe and comfortable for bicycles, pedestrians and vehicles.

“What will it take for somebody to feel comfortable riding a bike here?" McCamy said. "What would it take for someone to feel comfortable and safe crossing the street?... It's multi-pronged and it depends.”

She also pointed to a social justice element of the campaign.

In California, riding bikes or scooters on sidewalks is legal unless a local regulation prevents it. In L.A. County, sidewalk riding is legal following a vote from the County Board of Supervisors in June.

But before that change, citations for sidewalk riding disproportionately targeted Black and Latino cyclists, according to a 2021 investigation from the Los Angeles Times.

“It's not in the rich white suburbs that they're ticketing people for riding on the sidewalk,” McCamy said. “Other kinds of decriminalization bills make it safer for people of all colors, all races, to ride a bike and not feel like they're going to be persecuted.”

McCamy said Complete Streets would also make it safer for people to choose an e-bike over their car, which reduces overall vehicle miles traveled and helps reduce the carbon emissions seen by gas-powered cars.

One CA assemblymember wants to change e-bike regulation

Assemblymember Tasha Boerner represents the 77th California Assembly District. That’s the northern area of San Diego County — including Encinitas and Carlsbad.

She authored AB 530, currently pending legislation in response to the e-bike deaths seen in her district. If passed, that bill would require an online test for state-issued ID for e-bike riders without a driver’s license. It would also prohibit children under 12 years old from riding an e-bike and promote e-bike education.

Borbon, a legislative assistant in Boerner's office, said that young people riding e-bikes without a driver’s license don’t properly understand the rules of the road.

“They're operating on their e-bikes as if they’re vehicles, but it's what they perceive vehicles can do,” Borbon said.

The legislation is still in the early stages of development, but Borbon said the focus is on safety education for people without driver’s licenses to keep them safe on the road.

“It's opening up a whole can of worms, especially because now what we're seeing [are] electric mopeds that don't have pedals or just strictly throttle,” Borbon said. “The issue is only going to grow in other ways.”

McCamy said that CalBike is against any kind of legislation that increases e-bike regulations.

“Regulating e-bikes and licensing e-bikes, stopping kids from riding e-bikes is an irrational response to a real problem,” she said. “The real problem is not new. It is not specific to e-bikes. The problem is traffic violence.”

McCamy also said e-bike ID requirements could have disproportionately negative effects on people of color, just as L.A. saw with sidewalk riding citations.

“Who is going to be stopped and asked for their license on a bicycle?” McCamy said. “It's going to be Black kids. It's going to be Latino kids. It's not going to be little blond-haired white kids riding their bikes.”

E-bikes and accessibility

Though e-bikes have varying functions, their common thread is mobility.

San Gabriel Valley resident Baret Basham, 61, said he and his wife have enjoyed using e-bikes through the ActiveSGV bike share program during their golden years.

“This program provides a basic understanding of the bike and it makes riding a bike more enjoyable,” he said. “If you are 25 or 60 years old there is always a benefit when riding a bike.”

For Pasadena resident Nessa Maez, using an e-bike has helped her go to the grocery store and ice rink, where she trains as a figure skater.

“I try and avoid using my car as much as I can in Pasadena because I'm not a huge fan of the parking situation here, and it's just kind of chaotic,” she said. “I’d just rather be compact and use my bike and help the environment.”

Despite some safety controversy, e-bike popularity is still growing. Local politicians have been pushing for more low-cost e-bike availability for years.

In 2021, Boerner was the author of a different bill establishing a state-wide e-bike purchase incentive program. It approved $10 million toward what is now the California E-bike Incentive Project.

It hasn’t officially started yet, but a soft launch is expected in early 2024.

Managed by the California Air Resources Board, the E-bike Incentive Project will provide low-income California residents with cash reimbursements up to $2,000 after they purchase a qualifying e-bike.

Soon, residents across the state could receive a budget-friendly boost, for work or pleasure.

“I mean, regular bikes are so much fun,” McCamy said. “But that electric boost makes me want to say, ‘Weee.’”