Quick Take
Local activist Kevin Norton and surgeon Dr. John Maa warn that e-bikes are far more dangerous than most realize — especially for children. In California, e-bike crashes have surged nearly 19-fold since 2018 and were up 177% in Santa Cruz County in 2024, with some injuries resembling motorcycle wrecks. Children ages 10 to 13 account for nearly half of cases. While European and Asian countries enforce strict safety limits, the United States has delayed action. Norton and Maa urge local protections — education, helmets, age restrictions and speed limits — before more lives are lost or upended.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.
We are troubled that the Santa Cruz Transportation and Public Works Commission recently recommended against new local restrictions on e-bikes in the city. Instead, it called for education in schools and lobbying the California Legislature for statewide regulations, as the City of Capitola recently did.
We see two problems with this strategy: First, the state is unlikely to act quickly enough, and second, while education matters, is it really sufficient on its own?
The numbers — and the stories behind them — are alarming. In just the past month across the United States:
- A 17-year-old boy in Arlington Heights, Illinois, died after crashing into a pickup truck on an e-bike — on the very same day his town passed an ordinance to restrict their use.
- In Delaware, a 14-year-old boy was killed and another child seriously injured after an e-bike collided with a school bus.
- In Boston, a pedestrian in Copley Square was hit and killed by an e-bike.
- In San Marcos, California, two teens suffered “multiple traumatic injuries” after colliding with a motor vehicle. One had to be flown to the hospital by helicopter.
And the list goes on, with more e-bike accidents happening every day.
Welcome to America, a land where many products are rolled out without adequate research and regulation.
We know the toll firsthand here in Santa Cruz County. In March of this year, a 17-year-old Capitola teenager riding an e-bike was seriously injured after a collision with a semi-truck. A 78-year-old man died while riding an e-bike outside of Watsonville in July. In just the first four months of 2025, there were 13 e-bike incidents and 11 injuries in the city of Santa Cruz alone, according to Santa Cruz Police Chief Bernie Escalante — and many others were undoubtedly not reported.
Speed kills. Compared to traditional bikes, e-bikes are more likely to kill and severely injure pedestrians. In 2024, a Santa Cruz woman died after an 80-year-old man on an e-bike collided with her early in the morning.
How long do we want to wait to act?
The data from across California shows an alarming trend. Between 2018 and 2023, e-bike crashes increased 18.6 times, from 184 a year to 3,429. In Santa Cruz County, the California Highway Patrol reported 50 e-bike crashes in 2024, a 177% increase over the year before. And the injuries aren’t like those from conventional cycling. Surgeons are seeing more fractures of the pelvis, traumatic brain injuries and internal bleeding usually associated with motorcycle wrecks. One study found e-bike riders in crashes were six times more likely to suffer bleeding in the brain than regular cyclists.
What Europe already learned
The European Union didn’t wait for tragedies to pile up. Long before e-bikes flooded the market, it implemented safety rules, including a 15 mph speed limit on e-bikes, a ban on throttle-based e-bikes and clear age restrictions.
The results speak for themselves. England left the EU, but chose to keep most EU e-bike regulations, citing safety concerns.
Compare that with the U.S. and California, where laws are only beginning to catch up. Yes, California legislators recently required safer batteries and rear lights, and will attempt to crack down on misleading sales of “convertible” e-mopeds. But we think the e-bike problem is already becoming an epidemic. There are major differences with e-bikes — the heavier batteries, the higher rate of speed and the loss of control, especially when going downhill.
Children are especially vulnerable. A 2023 study in the journal Surgery Open Science found that kids aged 10 to 13 make up nearly 44% of all e-bike injuries.
United States: The Wild West of e-bikes
In Europe, Australia and parts of Asia, e-bikes are capped at 15 mph and must be pedal-assist only. Anything faster usually requires insurance, a moped license and a license plate. Age restrictions to ride an e-bike are the norm: 16 in the Netherlands, 15 in Germany, 14 in the United Kingdom, France and Spain. Some U.S. states have age restrictions. For Alaska it’s 14, Hawaii and Minnesota 15, and in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Oregon it’s 16. In Maine, you have to be 16 to be a Class 2 rider.
In Europe, S-pedelecs, or what we call Class 3 e-bikes, often require a moped license and sometimes are not allowed in bike lanes.
In California, here’s how we classify e-bikes:
- Class 1: Pedal-assist only, up to 20 mph.
- Class 2: Pedal-assist or throttle, up to 20 mph.
- Class 3: Pedal-assist only, up to 28 mph. Riders must be 16 or older and wear helmets.
That might sound like structure — but online, it’s the Wild West. Any American can order an illegal “e-motorcycle” advertised to go 30 to 40 mph, or deactivate the speed limiter on a legal e-bike with a few clicks or an app.
Some counties aren’t waiting around. Marin has banned children under 16 from Class 2 e-bikes. San Diego County prohibits children under 12 from both Class 1 and Class 2 models. These local efforts required special exemptions from the state Legislature.
Meanwhile, statewide legislation has stalled. In 2023, the Legislature rejected tougher restrictions, claiming it needed “more data” and then commissioned San Jose State University to conduct an e-bike safety study, with results expected later this year.
But we in Santa Cruz County do not need to wait — ample international evidence already shows the urgent need for stronger rules.
Can we trust Sacramento to act?
We’re skeptical. Let’s not forget how the soda industry strong-armed Sacramento in 2018, pushing a statewide ban on new soda taxes. It took grassroots organizing in Santa Cruz to challenge that shady deal. Do we really want to sit and wait — possibly for years — for the State of California to solve this problem?
Every delay means more injured children undergoing surgery at the hospital, or parents holding photos of children lost too soon.
What we can do — now
If you’re a parent, follow the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recommendation: Don’t let children under 12 ride e-bikes. Make sure kids are confident on conventional bikes first, and avoid Class 2 throttle-based models.
At the community level, we encourage cities and the County of Santa Cruz to adopt commonsense protections that will protect all road users. That includes:
- Helmet requirements for all e-bike riders, even on rental e-bikes
- No e-bikes on sidewalks, just as it’s been done for the County of Santa Cruz.
- Speed limits for ebikes and scooters on multi-use paths and in downtown areas.
- Prohibitions against riding more than two aboard and having more passengers than what an e-bike is designed for.
- Local age restrictions, modeled after Marin and San Diego.
We should also ramp up enforcement (gently). The Santa Cruz Police Department is cracking down on illegal e-motorcycles, and officers could also cite for unsafe riding behavior, including speeding and helmet infractions. We support education in schools and think we should follow Marin County, which already has an education program for e-bikes.
To think that one single bill will solve this problem completely is inaccurate. But community-driven action — combined with smarter policies — can save lives.
__
FOR THE RECORD: This op-ed has been updated to change language comparing fatal and serious injuries involving traditional and e-bikes, and to remove a graph that might have confused or misled some readers.
__
Kevin Norton is a public health professional, an avid cyclist and a survivor of motor vehicle trauma. He lives on the Westside of Santa Cruz.
Dr. John Maa is a general surgeon in San Francisco and is governor of the American College of Surgeons. He has been a leading voice in raising awareness of e-bike safety. In 2025, Maa and his colleagues successfully pushed for a law prohibiting children under 16 from riding throttle-based Class 2 e-bikes in Marin County. He rides his bicycle regularly in San Francisco and Marin County.