More Orange County cities are moving forward with regulations to crack down on the use of e-bikes, a growing safety problem since the pandemic that officials have struggled to reign in.
Huntington Beach became the latest city to implement new restrictions, passing an ordinance last week that would curb residents from operating any e-bike or regular bike in an “unsafe” manner by impounding bikes or issuing $400 tickets.
Since 2020, the use of e-bikes has dramatically increased, with many cities struggling to figure out if they can restrict their use as more people continue buying them, with increasing incidents of bicycle accidents and multiple reports of teenagers driving them unsafely at up to 30 mph.
[Read: Orange County Cities Struggle To Handle Electric Bike Regulations]
“Since the pandemic, e-bike sales have soared to record levels in the United States,” reads a May 8 report from Michael Herzog, a Seal Beach Police captain.
“The surge in popularity for e-bikes has also led to a rise in injuries, accidents, emergency room visits, and deaths among e-bike riders as well as riders of traditional bikes and pedestrians.”
At Irvine’s Sept. 12 city council meeting, police Lt. Matt McLaughlin showed data from the department that traffic accidents with kids on bikes more than tripled from 2020 to 2022, and that the total number of e-bike crashes went from less than 5 in 2019 to nearly 30 by 2022.
In two thirds of all bicycle crashes, the cyclist was found to be at fault – generally for failing to yield or for driving at an unsafe speed.
Last week in Huntington Beach, city council members unanimously approved a new law that would let city police stop anyone operating a bicycle in a “unsafe manner,” noting that e-bikes would also fall under that same restriction.
Officers would have the power to impound kid’s bikes, and have the power to potentially write a ticket worth as much as $400.
City Councilman Dan Kalmick said the goal of the law wasn’t to crack down on bike riders, but to stop the “hooliganism folks are reporting.”
“There’s roving groups of teeagers that haven’t seen Red Asphalt, don’t know what it means to either get bounced off a car at 40 miles an hour or don’t understand when they run into someone with this much mass that it can cause severe damage,” Kalmick said.
Beyond punishment, Kalmick said the measures could lead to education.
“By confiscating (the bikes) we get to have a conversation with those parents as they get their bike back from their kid,” he said.
Huntington Beach Police Chief Eric Parra also mentioned they were in the process of bringing together the various police departments throughout OC and the county sheriff to review each department’s rules on e-bikes to see if there was room to collaborate or improve on the existing laws.
Under state law, cities aren’t allowed to make rules that completely ban e-bikes or require riders to have a license.
Eight of the county’s 34 cities and the county government itself have instituted rules specifically around the use of e-bikes or applying the same rules they use for bicycles, according to the Orange County Transportation Authority’s e-bikes data dashboard.
This includes Aliso Viejo, Irvine, Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Newport Beach, San Clemente and Seal Beach – which adopted an ordinance in May.
While 28 cities have rules specifically addressing bike usage, it’s unclear whether all those same rules apply to e-bike owners or not under the law.
Both Huntington Beach and Irvine also noted that school districts have helped make an impact on the issue, with Irvine Unified School District requiring students who want to ride an e-bike to school to attend safety seminars hosted by the city’s police department.
Hosam Elattar contributed to this article.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on X @NBiesiada.