Jeremy McCreary
Bought it anyway
- Region
- USA
- City
- Carlsbad, CA
Study: Ebike injuries growing exponentially
That's the headline from a recent issue of The Coast News, a regional weekly covering coastal San Diego County. Ebike adoption has been high across all age groups here — especially among kids. Full text below.
Alarming stats and trends from 2018 to 2024 to say the least — especially for kids, who all too often are unprepared for the skills and responsibilities needed to ride safely on public infrastructure. And they're all too often on machines far too powerful for their maturity level.
In fact, alarming to the point that UC San Diego researchers, various medical organizations, and regional public safety officials now see ebikes as an urgent public health problem. A public health approach could help.
My pro-ebike state senator recently held an ebike safety webinar on this exponentially growing problem. And after attending and seeing some of the data and how it was collected for myself, I have to agree:
Something has to be done — but what?
The good news: All the major players here seem to have the same goal: Reduce the deaths and injuries — especially among kids — while preserving the many recognized benefits that LEGAL ebikes bring to the community. Drain the bathwater, keep the baby.
Won't be easy, but at least I know now that we have serious, thoughtful, evidence-based people working on it. None are calling for bans or draconian restrictions on currently legal ebikes.
But among other things, they ARE calling (a) for parents to start doing their jobs or face consequences, and (b) for getting illegal e-motos off public infrastructure. That's a very good start.
Regulation vs. enforcement
It's easy to say that we don't need more ebike regulations, just better enforcement. Also naive. Ramping up enforcement is expensive, resource-intensive, and legally and operationally challenging. For example, law enforcement here in North County is chronically understaffed — not for lack of funding, but for lack of qualified applicants. Nobody wants to be a cop these days.
In response, recent proposals in the CA legislature are trying to make ebike enforcement easier and safer for officers on the scene — and to make penalties more likely to stick in court. Long overdue.
It's also easy to paint all regulators as uninformed fools, or ebike-hating zealots, or minions of this or that big interest. But that's just not the case here. Ebike regulation in North County has generally been measured and well thought-out, and I have every reason now to think that trend will continue as the public health approach is explored.
Local reporting
The Coast News does respectable journalism. I admire their level-headed reporting on a topic that other news organizations usually sensationalize to the hilt.
Ebikes are now deeply embedded in coastal SoCal, so they naturally get a lot of coverage. But unlike most other outlets, the Coast News keeps the coverage fair and unbiased. And they consistently educate their readers on the differences between a legal ebike and an e-moto and why they must be dealt with separately.
Exactly why we still need local papers.
That's the headline from a recent issue of The Coast News, a regional weekly covering coastal San Diego County. Ebike adoption has been high across all age groups here — especially among kids. Full text below.
Alarming stats and trends from 2018 to 2024 to say the least — especially for kids, who all too often are unprepared for the skills and responsibilities needed to ride safely on public infrastructure. And they're all too often on machines far too powerful for their maturity level.
In fact, alarming to the point that UC San Diego researchers, various medical organizations, and regional public safety officials now see ebikes as an urgent public health problem. A public health approach could help.
My pro-ebike state senator recently held an ebike safety webinar on this exponentially growing problem. And after attending and seeing some of the data and how it was collected for myself, I have to agree:
Something has to be done — but what?
The good news: All the major players here seem to have the same goal: Reduce the deaths and injuries — especially among kids — while preserving the many recognized benefits that LEGAL ebikes bring to the community. Drain the bathwater, keep the baby.
Won't be easy, but at least I know now that we have serious, thoughtful, evidence-based people working on it. None are calling for bans or draconian restrictions on currently legal ebikes.
But among other things, they ARE calling (a) for parents to start doing their jobs or face consequences, and (b) for getting illegal e-motos off public infrastructure. That's a very good start.
Regulation vs. enforcement
It's easy to say that we don't need more ebike regulations, just better enforcement. Also naive. Ramping up enforcement is expensive, resource-intensive, and legally and operationally challenging. For example, law enforcement here in North County is chronically understaffed — not for lack of funding, but for lack of qualified applicants. Nobody wants to be a cop these days.
In response, recent proposals in the CA legislature are trying to make ebike enforcement easier and safer for officers on the scene — and to make penalties more likely to stick in court. Long overdue.
It's also easy to paint all regulators as uninformed fools, or ebike-hating zealots, or minions of this or that big interest. But that's just not the case here. Ebike regulation in North County has generally been measured and well thought-out, and I have every reason now to think that trend will continue as the public health approach is explored.
Local reporting
The Coast News does respectable journalism. I admire their level-headed reporting on a topic that other news organizations usually sensationalize to the hilt.
Ebikes are now deeply embedded in coastal SoCal, so they naturally get a lot of coverage. But unlike most other outlets, the Coast News keeps the coverage fair and unbiased. And they consistently educate their readers on the differences between a legal ebike and an e-moto and why they must be dealt with separately.
Exactly why we still need local papers.
