On Christmas Day, Jade Sharpe watched as her 13-year-old daughter Kennedi Chandler took her brand-new e-bike – able to going about 20 mph – for a spin of their Indiana neighborhood.
Her mother and father had a plan to get Kennedi a key piece of security gear. But they didn’t have the guts to say no when, on the unseasonably heat vacation, she requested to journey the electrical bike she’d begged them for – with out a helmet.
Less than two hours later, {the teenager} hit the pavement.
“The next thing I knew was flashing lights, and then just … heart sunk. You just know,” Sharpe informed NCS.
“I didn’t realize how bad it was until we were in the ambulance,” Sharpe mentioned. Even although they reside in an enormous suburb of the state’s greatest metropolis, they weren’t heading to the closest hospital. “And then you realize we’re going to the best trauma center Indianapolis has, and that’s because that’s what she needed.”
Kennedi sustained a traumatic mind damage and spent the following 20 days within the hospital, 14 in intensive care. Doctors needed to take away a part of her cranium to quell the swelling and bleeding in her mind.
“This surgeon,” Sharpe mentioned, “has expressed how many bicycle accidents she’s had come through over the years, and Kennedi is lucky – so very lucky.”
But these aren’t your mom’s guide bicycles. Their colours are sleeker. Their tires are greater. And, most significantly, they’re outfitted with motors that may energy them to speeds exceeding 30 mph.
Several circumstances this yr in California spotlight the dangers: In Fresno, a 13-year-old died and two different kids have been critically injured in two separate e-bike crashes, police mentioned. In Garden Grove, a 13-year-old boy died after approaching a curve at round 35 mph and colliding with a middle median whereas driving what authorities mentioned was an electrical bike. And in Lake Forest, a 14-year-old doing wheelies on an e-motorcycle – capable of attain 56 mph – struck and killed an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran strolling residence from his job instead instructor, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office mentioned.
The Lake Forest boy’s mom – who prosecutors say was beforehand warned it was unlawful for her son to journey the e-motorcycle – now faces an involuntary manslaughter cost. Meanwhile, the Orange County district legal professional has filed child endangerment charges towards three mother and father this yr for permitting kids to journey electrical bikes illegally, calling the gadgets “deadly weapons.”
As gas prices rise, many within the biking group have praised e-bikes as an eco-friendly and energetic various to different types of transportation. But the spate of latest crashes involving kids and teenagers – some driving high-powered motor autos they don’t seem to be legally allowed to make use of – has prompted strikes towards extra regulation on the roads, transparency amongst sellers and a more in-depth look by mother and father at what their children are actually driving.
Atlanta emergency room doctor, Dr. Darria Long, has grow to be all too aware of e-bike-related accidents within the final 5 to 10 years – together with head accidents, fractures, concussions, chest accidents, cardiac arrest and even loss of life.
Families who didn’t notice the facility of the bikes or motor autos their kids have been driving have been usually stunned to search out themselves in an emergency room, the physician mentioned.
“They thought their kid was just doing something fun. They thought that by giving them a helmet, maybe they prevented all injuries – and then they’re devastated, because every parent loves their child, and they don’t want to see their child being injured. And they didn’t know,” she mentioned.
Following her late-December damage and weeks of lacking faculty, Kennedi is now ending her final spherical of occupational, bodily and speech remedy. She’s taking part in soccer once more and is worked up to get again on a motorcycle – this time, her mother mentioned, with a helmet.
“It could be so much worse than what you think,” Sharpe mentioned. “It’s not just a broken bone.”
Between 2017 and 2024, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission documented 533 micromobility fatalities – a class that features e-bikes, e-scooters and different small electrical autos – rising from 5 in 2017 to 135 in 2024. Emergency division visits quadrupled in the identical interval, from 37,300 to 149,100, in response to the commission’s report, printed in April. E-bike deaths alone rose from zero in 2017 to 97 in 2024.
That doesn’t embrace motorized autos like mopeds or e-motorcycles that exceed e-bike limits and fall exterior the fee’s scope however are sometimes grouped below the e-bike umbrella in client consciousness and retail descriptions. As a consequence, some lethal crashes involving younger riders aren’t included within the rely.
Children between the ages of 11 and 14 accounted for 61.7% of e-bike and e-motorcycle crashes, and accidents have spiked 430% within the final 4 years in Southern California alone, data cited by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office present.
The first issue is the place these bikes are being ridden: usually on public streets, alongside automobiles – some at speeds similar to these of automobiles, Long mentioned.
“There is no minor bicyclist-versus-vehicle hit when you’re on public streets,” Long mentioned. “A bicyclist on an e-bike – they’re not going to win that battle versus a car.”
And a helmet can solely do so a lot.
“Yes, the helmet is making you safer than if you don’t wear the helmet, but at these speeds that we’re seeing, the trauma can be so bad that it can overcome the helmet,” the ER physician mentioned. “A helmet’s not going to help you if the car is going 40 miles an hour and you’re going 30.”
While Kennedi understands what occurred to her, she doesn’t bear in mind the main points of the crash itself or the trauma of this previous Christmas, her mother mentioned.
“I’m glad we can hold that burden, that weight, for her,” Sharpe mentioned.
For anxious mother and father who need to hold their very own youngsters secure, Long has some recommendation: Never let kids journey e-bikes on public streets; keep away from modifications – bikes are bought with velocity limits for a purpose, and; outfit youngsters in full protecting gear, together with a motorbike helmet and leather-based masking arms and legs.
“Effectively, these are mini motorcycles,” Long mentioned. “The gear is not going to protect them in the biggest crashes, but it’s at least going to kind of give them a leg up.”
Last week, Amazon introduced it might halt sales of e-bikes in California that exceed state limits, requiring third-party sellers to adjust to California legislation and eradicating noncompliant listings. The Orange County district legal professional, Todd Spitzer, introduced it as a win in his crackdown on mother and father who let their kids illegally journey e-motorcycles or modified e-bikes.
But, Spitzer mentioned, the transfer got here solely after a local television station contacted Amazon in regards to the gross sales – not after California’s legal professional normal issued a consumer alert in April, not after kids had already died.
NCS has reached out to Amazon for remark.
AG Rob Bonta warned customers e-bikes can’t exceed 20 to twenty-eight mph in California, relying on sort. Some that do are thought-about bikes or mopeds, requiring a DMV license and a minimal age of 16 to function, although they’re being marketed and bought by some retailers as e-bikes.
“We are seeing a surge of safety incidents on our sidewalks, parks, and streets,” Bonta mentioned.
There’s an necessary distinction between electrical bicycles and electrical bikes, mentioned Matt Moore, normal counsel for People for Bikes, a nationwide biking coalition.
“Electric bicycles have been heavily regulated for over 20 years. They are consumer products. They are subject to (Consumer Product Safety Commission) safety regulations, recalls and they’re defined in federal and state laws everywhere,” Moore mentioned.
Motorized bicycles that exceed sure speeds and mopeds are positioned into a unique classification by most states, with age and licensing necessities. But these distinctions haven’t damaged by means of to customers, many who hunt down electrical bicycles and going residence with electrical bikes, Moore mentioned.
The confusion isn’t restricted to customers. “We have a lot of officers who really can’t tell the difference between an e-bike and an e-motorcycle,” Huntington Beach, California, Police Sgt. Mike Thomas said at a statewide e-bike safety symposium this week. “So, how is a parent going to be able to tell the difference?”
“Some of the online sellers are kind of perpetuating the confusion. They don’t tell you what you’re buying, or they claim that it’s a street-legal product,” Moore informed NCS. “They will even claim that it’s a type of electric bicycle if it has a lower speed setting on the controller – so you can limit this device to 20 miles per hour, but you can also go 65 miles per hour – and they sell that as street legal.”
“There are no safety standards for these electric motorcycles that are being sold. They’re not tested. The batteries aren’t tested to these safety standards, and they’re just inherently dangerous,” he added.
The unwitting customers are typically mother and father, given the value level – $1,500 to $3,000 – Moore mentioned.
Then, there are the unlawful modifications folks could make at residence, which may rework an e-bike into an e-motorcycle whereas making the distinction virtually indistinguishable. How-to movies are available on-line.
“You can’t give a child a gun, alcohol or anything else like that, but you can give them an illegal motorcycle,” Moore mentioned. “It just makes no sense.”
Accountability and guardrails
When Georgia mother Krysten McCabe went for a stroll by means of her Marietta neighborhood this previous Christmas, she seen a wave of excited kids testing out brand-new bikes. At first, they regarded just like the bicycles she’d grown up driving.
One was barreling down the sidewalk, heading straight for McCabe – topped with a wobbly 10-year-old boy who seemed to be making no try and decelerate. She grabbed her canine’s leash and received herself and her pet off the sidewalk earlier than the boy might hit them.
Police in Keller, Texas, issued warnings to e-bike riders who fled from police
She turned to warn the boy about how highly effective his bike was, however he was quickly on his method.
Scenes of e-bike “takeovers” – metropolis streets all of the sudden full of lots of youngsters driving in unison – have left bystanders rattled, drivers complaining about harmful interruptions, and involved mother and father flocking to group conferences and Facebook teams.
Some coverage makers are catching on.
In Fishers, Indiana, the place Kennedi crashed her bike on Christmas Day, the police department warned of an uptick in reckless driving and misuse of e-bikes and e-motorcycles, and an area ordinance was proposed that will require riders to be a minimum of 15 years outdated with a legitimate ID to make use of them on roadways.
Now, as crashes mount, many query who must be held accountable – the mother and father who buy e-bikes, the sellers who label them, the lawmakers who enable them on the roads?
People for Bikes’ Moore says the dialog is worth it. He likened the second to the emergence a number of years in the past of e-cigarettes and vape products among teenagers. Tobacco merchandise have been marketed to youth, bought in fruity flavors with colourful packaging.
“Youth became addicted, and attorneys general stepped in, they sued the companies that were selling the products and made them change their marketing,” Moore mentioned. “That is exactly what should happen here. They need to stop selling motorcycles to kids as if they’re safe and appropriate – or even legal – to use.”
Last week, Spitzer announced the formation of a devoted e-bike and e-motorcycle prosecution unit to overview potential legal fees towards juveniles and adults, together with mother and father who knowingly enable their kids to journey unlawful e-motorcycles.
In New Jersey, lawmakers in January handed what some have described as probably the most restrictive e-bike legislation within the nation, narrowing the definition of a low-speed electrical bicycle – one which maxes out at 20 mph – and treating all different e-bikes as motorized bicycles, with licensing and registration necessities.
Bike fanatics criticized the legislation as too restrictive and mentioned it overlooks essential laws for e-motorcycles. They’ve additionally raised concerns that native restrictions and age limits on e-bikes across the nation forged too extensive a web, hurting bike-friendly communities within the try to guard kids.
Meanwhile, some colleges across the nation are shifting to ban e-bikes on and round campuses.
In Bradford, Pennsylvania, Police Chief Michael Ward not too long ago warned towards the hazards of high-powered e-bikes that may attain excessive speeds after a video of an e-bike rider colliding with and flipping over a automobile went viral. Police in Keller, Texas, issued an analogous warning, together with dashcam video of younger riders they mentioned fled officers on streets. Such warnings have been echoed by police departments throughout the nation coping with chaotic riders and involved mother and father.
Moore says his group has labored to cross laws in Minnesota, Utah, Colorado, Connecticut and California to ban retailers from promoting high-speed motorized autos as e-bikes. He’s hopeful halting some e-motorcycle gross sales in California – and related strikes – will create momentum towards regulation in different states.
But for now, in lots of cities, a guardian can purchase a car able to 60 mph, hand it to a toddler, and by no means be informed it isn’t a bicycle.