School’s out at Olympian High School in Chula Vista, and a lot of the kids are getting on their bikes to head home. Nearly all of them carry a big battery that drives an e-bike motor.
“I have to ride home every day and I live a mile and a half away. So riding a normal bike would take very long. And it’s mostly uphill,” said Aidan, an Olympian High School student and e-bike rider.
Electric bikes are a great way to give kids the mobility they need to be independent. They can also be dangerous, and communities are facing the challenge of how to make our streets safe for them.
None of the bikers I saw leaving the Olympian High School grounds that day were popping wheelies or endangering pedestrians. But most ER doctors will tell you e-bikes are a reason why bike injuries are on the rise.
The chief of trauma surgery at Scripps Mercy Hospital Dr. Vishal Bansal said his hospital used to count e-bike and e-motorcycle injuries in the dozens every year. Now, they’re counted in the hundreds.
The head of trauma medicine at Rady Children’s Hospital said e-bikes have made bike accidents more serious. Often it’s no longer a case for the emergency room, but a case for the operating room.
“Most times we see bicycle injuries they don’t really warrant a trauma surgeon or a trauma team to see them. But the e-bikes are much more fast, much more difficult for the kids to control. So the injuries are much more severe, especially in relation to head injuries,” said Romeo Ignacio, a pediatric surgeon and trauma medical director at Rady Children’s.
E-bike motors give an electric boost to a bike’s peddle action, and many bikes also have a throttle that will run it 20 miles an hour, without peddling. Class 3 e-bikes will power that pedal assist up to 28 miles per hour.
Bansal this week attended a press conference with law enforcement, pointing out the potential danger of electric two-wheelers. He and Dr. Ignacio said e-bikes can go even faster when they’re “mods,” bikes with modified motors.
“You might sell a bike that has a limit of 20-25 miles an hour. I guarantee you these kids are going to modify it to go faster,” Bansal said.
Making streets safe for e-bikes
It’s easy to find people who are concerned about e-bikes and adults who want to grumble about kids riding them irresponsibly.
But I didn’t speak to anyone who thought they could just wish e-bikes away. Most people seemed to agree that education was key to keeping kids safe. And that’s what cycling instructor Jeffrey Schnure tries to do.
“And I think e-bikes are great because they really improve people’s mobility options, whether you’re a child and you may not be able to get up a hill, instead of having to dismount and walk up, you can just bike right up,” Schnure said.
Schnure was one of the instructors who showed up in a parking lot Saturday morning in Solana Beach. About 10 kids, most of them with e-bikes, also came with their parents to learn how to ride them safely.
The class last weekend was hosted by the San Diego County Bike Coalition and the city of Solana Beach. It began indoors with a class, relevant to any biker trying to navigate local streets.
An instructor showed slides of streets and traffic scenarios. Questions included: How do you make a left turn on a multi-lane road? How do you stay out of the door zone, where a car door thrown open can endanger a cyclist?
Outside, kids practiced some cycling drills before they all went for a short road trip.
“I think the thing that makes you the most safe as a cyclist is being conspicuous and being predictable,” Schnure said.
Sometimes being conspicuous means taking the whole traffic lane a car would occupy. That can be done more easily with an e-bike, which can better match the speed of a car.
Cycling instructor Ron Dashwood uses an example from his home town of Encinitas.
“So if you’re on residential streets, the speed limit is 20 miles an hour. A class-1 e-bike can go 20 miles an hour. So you can be taking the lane on a residential street and you’re going the speed limit,” Dashwood said.
The greater speed of an e-bike doesn’t always make them more dangerous. Yes, the higher speed can cause more serious injuries in a crash. But the slow pace of a conventional bike also presents a risk.
Chloe Lauer, executive director of the San Diego County Bike Coalition, says the better ability of an e-bike to match the speed of a car, means it is less likely to collide with one.
“When there is less of a speed differential there is less chance of a crash, and the higher the speed differential the higher there is a chance of a crash,” Lauer said.
Lauer said Dashwood’s example of an e-bike going 20 miles per hour on a residential street is a good rule to follow.
“At the bike coalition we advocate for ‘20 is plenty.’ This minimizes the speed differential between car drivers and other road users,” Lauer said. “And in places where there’s a lot of pedestrian activity we think that’s a really good model,”
The best way for kids to get around?
Ella Gutman is a North County teenager who took the cycling class in Solana Beach. She said her e-bike has given her a sense of responsibility and independence.
“It’s really fun, as a kid, because I can’t go that many places far away by myself, because I can’t drive and stuff. But with electric vehicles, like e-bikes it’s a lot easier to do that,” she said.
Ella’s dad, Tomer Gutman, said it took a while before he was comfortable with Ella on an e-bike. But he sees the upside now.
“If the child can take care of themselves and go to afterschool activities and friends, it’s going to help parents, myself and my wife, to address other things instead of just being a taxi driver all afternoon!” he said.
But how young is too young to operate an e-bike?
The City of Carlsbad will hold a meeting next week to determine whether it should prohibit the use of e-bikes for kids under age 12. Chula Vista has done that already.
