Can't recall seeing any news stories about people murdered by Ebike.
Police - questioning the power rating of your E-bike? or Ticketing you?
- Thread starter Tom@WashDC
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Bikeknit
Active Member
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- USA
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- Kansas City
I think the difficulty of enforcing complex regulations is the problem. Most trails are meant to get pedestrians and bicyclists out of traffic. Most of us don't want mopeds zooming down our trails - and I've seen it in my part of the country. At some point an electrified bicycle becomes a moped and drawing the line is not simple. Wherever you draw it, someone will be upset. At the risk of getting pounced on, I have some sympathy for the park and other officials trying to thread this needle.
Agreed. The odd thing on the trail that I use most is actually the speed limit. There are lots of steep downhills with sharp corners where one has no idea what might be coming up said trail when they go around that corner. The speed limit on those trails is 20 mph. I doubt the person that set that limit has ever ridden a bike of any kind on that trail as 20 mph is too fast on 90+% of it. I myself have only barely exceeded 15 and that was a bit scary at times. The good news is it's actually not heavily used even in summer so no bad accidents so far that I'm aware of but if there is one I'll bet speed is the main factor and I'll bet that speed is under 20 mph.
Never been pulled over and asked but ebikes are really just becoming a thing here and all it will take is a few serious incidents or some old biddy with pull for enforcement to be taking a closer look. Most officers don't know the difference between a 250W motor and a 1000W motor but they will and if you are out of line or simply unfortunate expect tickets.
No one really cared about dirt bikes either and there as a riding area near me that was the place to go, people would come 100 miles to ride there; it wasn't legal and the cops didn't care, a wide expanse of dirt bike heaven. One day my friend launched his bike over a hill in some remote area and there was a car right on the track in front of his front wheel. It was the middle of nowhere and it would have been more likely to have hit a moose. He mashed his bike up a bit and broke his wrist. The cops went to the hospital to drop a stack of tickets on him for everything: no insurance, motor vehicle violations, dangerous driving...everything. If someone else got hurt in all of that.....
No one really cared about dirt bikes either and there as a riding area near me that was the place to go, people would come 100 miles to ride there; it wasn't legal and the cops didn't care, a wide expanse of dirt bike heaven. One day my friend launched his bike over a hill in some remote area and there was a car right on the track in front of his front wheel. It was the middle of nowhere and it would have been more likely to have hit a moose. He mashed his bike up a bit and broke his wrist. The cops went to the hospital to drop a stack of tickets on him for everything: no insurance, motor vehicle violations, dangerous driving...everything. If someone else got hurt in all of that.....
David42000
Member
You have it absolutely right!
David42000
Member
If you mean 3 class as "the law" it is utterly vague but does specify what the motor can do, and not what the software/firmware does. If you mean 15 USC 2085, it too specifies what the motor can do and not the system. And it does specify an engineering formula for manufacturers to use that is Incapable of propelling a 170 lb rider faster than 20 m.ph. on a level surface. Thus, the exact same bike is unchanged by the weight of a rider, and if it can take a 170 lb person up to 20 m.p.h., then it could take a 100 pound rider faster, and obviously, a 300 pound rider would be slower than a 170 pound rider. 3 class is both less stringent and more stringent than the federal law. It is less stringent because the 300 pound rider can still get up to 20 m.p.h. but the 100 lb rider that should be able to get up above 20 m.p.h. is artifically restricted from it. I've never seen a regulation that is both more stringent and less stringent at the same time. That's very peculiar.
David42000
Member
AAack! You were RIGHT!
David42000
Member
Paralegals are the expert researchers lawyers employ so they can spend more time arguing in court. I'm a paralegal precisely because I'm not a "wanna be" lawyer (I certainly could've been) and I am totally research oriented, and I think you have the losing argument here. You can't produce the law you claim you are stating. Then you result to an ad hominem attack, calling your opponenet a "wanna be lawyer" becasue he actually wants you to prove it. You lose the debate.
Gionnirocket
Well-Known Unidentified Member
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- USA
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- Y. O.
And on this day... internet Jesus resurrects yet another dead thread... ¡Hallelujah!
David42000
Member
A perfect example of not treating Bikes and e-bikes alike. It makes no sense to me that a state thinks they will treat e-bikes and bikes alike by treating them differently.
David42000
Member
Not if you're PeopleForBikes writing the laws.
In-house counsel Matt Moore serves as part of the public face of PFB’s "clarification" efforts. In a 2026 video, "E-Bikes vs. E-Motos: Legal Distinctions, Legislative Strategies, and Regulatory Actions," and only after receiving a question about the vagueness of having no hard standard, Mr. Moore addresses the "Whatts" confusion at 51:00, stating:
E-Bikes vs. E-motos: Legal Distinctions, Legislative Strategies, and Regulatory Actions
"PeopleForBikes’ position is that 750 watts means continuous rated power. Uh that's how motor power, useful motor power is is measured. Uh, the federal definition is silent on that." Neither is true and it's their own freaking law they have to develop a "postition" on. Mr. Moore has received the question because no-one in 45 states knows exactly what the PFB model law means.
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David42000
Member
I agree. I ride reasonably and only got stopped once, by a cop who didn't care about what sort of e-bike I had. There's a long strip of businesses on the highway out of town. The only way to get to some is on that highway. The cop only wanted to warn me not to ride my bike with a trailer on the highway. That's not illegal, here, since it is not controlled access and speed is still limited. I had the urge to tell him he was incorrect, but I bit my tongue and told him sure, and was respectful. I wasn't about to provoke him to take a harder look.
But you are absolutely right, I believe, that this is about to become a lawyer problem. I've been a member of this forum since 2020, but I've only started posting now precisely because I believe it's about to go to the courts in a big way. I'm a paralegal who loves e-bikes and has consumers' interests at heart. Lawyers won't share the correct information for free or else are themselves ignorant. My main point for coming out of the woodwork at this time is because I want to help people help their lawyers. Why now? I understand the legal incremental conditioning of people and was able to predict that a) before long some state would totally defy the federal law and take it to regiustration, insurance and licensing, and N.J. just did so; and I also figured PeopleForBikes would incrementally attack 15 USC 2085, which is the only thing that protects our access to e-bikes treated as bikes.
e-bike riders are being conditioned--the frog in the slowly boiling pot analogy and attention to Stockholm Syndrome is good food for thought. Stockholm is the strange phenomenon where women, kidnapped, raped, abused and held captive long term, slowly identify with their captors and eventually come to defend them and desire to remain with them. It happens to all of us in some sense if we aren't paying attention to that. So I look for every tiny increment.
Right now the SAFE SPEEDS ACT seems to be only about safety statistics, but the real goal is to work 3 class into the federal law so that PFB can later say, look, 15 USC 2085 is at odds with all this other federal legislation, it has to change. First they got 3 class applied to sidewalks under federal jurisdiction. Now they want safety statistics under 3 class rules and it is entirely useless in the scientific sense because we tie traffic accidents to millions of miles driven or riden, and e-bikes don't have odometers that can't be reset, so no-one will be able to compare e-bike accident statistics with any kind of statistical rigor at all. Worse, the data collection point for odometer information is REGISTRATION. Nor does SAFE SPEEDS want to know who was at fault--the e-bike rider or the car that pretended the rider wasn't there? There is no way this can be good. A raw number of e-bike fatalities, untethered to the reality of how many miles are ridden, and divorced from fault, can only be used to whip up hysteria. I can only speculate at what the new PFB law to replace 15 USC 2085 looks like, but I'm willing to bet it "forgets" the provision that e-bikes and bikes must be treated as the same product. PFB's aim has always been to treat e-bikes differently than bikes.
It's not overthinking for me. This is just what I do. I hope it benefits you if you need the legal knowledge someday and hope even more you never do. But if you ever change your mind and think legal info is valuable, it's here, whether most of the board likes it or not. Just be aware--I believe heavy enforcement is coming soon. They'll start watching downhill riding and use speed in excess of 20 or 28 m.p.h. as "probable cause" to check your compliance with 3 class. They'll confiscate any "out of compliance" bikes that are still compliant with federal law.
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Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Dave Im going to have to chatgpt summary your posts, promise me it isnt already
David42000
Member
I appreciate that you want to take the time to do that. Be warned, though, AI is programmed to give the "Popular" "consensus" internet view. I'm not sure what your level of experience is using AI, but it is often necessary to push back before it will tell you the cold hard facts. ChatGPT is one of the worst for sanitizing information. I've become quite familiar with five different models and find Grok and Google Gemini to be the most willing to correct previous answers. Put my memorandums to the AI and ask if it is correct constitutional law. Did you see my new thread I started yesterday about New Jersey registration going into effect and what to do?
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
I spent an hour constantly refining the question to get it to admit to an unpopular subject.
It was like conversing with a toddler with sticky fingers about a missing candy bar
David42000
Member
Good, you know the drill.
Tom@WashDC
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Loudoun County, VA.
Gionnirocket! Good to hear from you!
I started this thread back in 2021 out of curiosity. Back then my buddy and I were about the only ebike riders in our immediate area of Brambleton/Ashburn Va., a well manicured area with countless paved and wooded bike paths/trails. Flash forward to today, electric motorcylces ridden by juveniles have innundated the area so the Sherriff's Dept. has installed a drone on top of the new library in the town center specifically to find the home base of the "kids" riding electric motorcyles and generally wreaking havoc in the community. The Sherrif indicated to me that they use the drone to follow the offenders home as they are prohibited from chasing the kids and possibly causing on accident.
Times have changed.
To my original question posted back in 2021:
I was pulled over last year in 2025, but the Sherriff did not ask about my motor power (1600 peak W). He did threaten to impound my bike and write me a ticket for reckless driving.
harryS
Well-Known Member
I have bikes with 250W motors that barely pull 18 mph on throttle, but lift the wheel and they spin like a top up to 30 mph, In the UK, the cops impound/confiscate on that test. They just got in the media when they took and crushed a new cargo bike that had been donated to a delivery driver by the local safe cycling organization.
Chargeride
Well-Known Member
Heres a funny one, our absolute Keystone coppers managed to seize a council scheme ecargo bike, claim it was illegal because the brain stem of a policeman could spin the wheels past 15mph, they seized it and crushed it before doubling down by claiming it was seized and crushed for no insurance...purposely greying the argument with a circlejerk loop.
I appreciate their could be a nuance here, it might have been chipped, but they backed down, probably because this test is very much up to the coppers own impression of assistance.
My Levo doesnt have a speedo...test excempt
I appreciate their could be a nuance here, it might have been chipped, but they backed down, probably because this test is very much up to the coppers own impression of assistance.
My Levo doesnt have a speedo...test excempt
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