In my suburban neighborhood electric “e-bikes” are everywhere. Kids ride them to the middle school that is one street over. Kids ride them to the community pools. Kids ride them to the pond at the park a few blocks from me and they ride them on the bike path that snakes through our neighborhood into the next. E-bikes take many forms. Some are configured like motor scooters, others like traditional bicycles. Some are two-wheel stand-only with small wheels. It amazes me how fast they can go. While most states limit the speed to 20 miles per hour, some peddle-assist e-bikes can go faster, some up to 28 mph.
Public health officials, including the American College of Surgeons (ACS), are warning that e-bikes are increasingly a public health hazard. This is true not just for riders but also for pedestrians. More from ACS:
Three pedestrians also were killed by e-bike riders. Increased delivery services by e-bike, bidirectional bicycle lanes, riding in traffic, and a proliferation of e-bike city rentals have contributed to the increased injuries.
In February 2024, US researchers reported a dramatic 49-fold increase in e-bike riders with head trauma nationally over the past 5 years, which they attribute to a lack of safety regulations like mandatory helmets, speed limits for e-bikes, and age restrictions
While data from various states shows bicycle accidents have risen in the past eight or nine years, e-bikes add to the total, not necessarily substituting for them. Data from California shows about 12,000 bicycle collisions in 2018, but only around 200 e-bike crashes. By 2023 bicycle collisions had risen to 17,000. Meanwhile e-bike collisions had increased nine-fold to 1,800.
The University of California Irvine Health reports:
More than 20,000 people are injured on e-bikes annually, 15% of them seriously enough to be hospitalized, according to the American College of Surgeons. Their injuries tend to be more serious and only a third of the injured report wearing helmets.
Laws vary by state, but not all kids follow the rules requiring helmets. I recall how bicycle helmets were controversial initially when public health officials began to encourage parents to make school-age children wear bicycle helmets. It becomes even more critical when your bike is cruising at 20mph on small wheels. Also, most younger children (and their older siblings) lack the experience weaving in and out of traffic going 20mph when cars are going 35. A study in the journal Surgery Open Science concluded:
The rate of pediatric e-bike injuries increased over the study period. Compared to riders on pedal bicycles or mopeds, children on e-bikes had infrequent helmet use and increased rate of hospitalization. These findings suggest that attention to e-bike safety and increasing helmet usage are important to public health among the pediatric population.
The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons also notes rising incidence of bone and joint injuries associated with e-bikes. The organization’s recommendations are good (my paraphrase):
- Wear a helmet (make sure it’s high quality and fits)
- Be familiar with your equipment and know your local ordinances
- Regularly inspect your equipment (i.e. brakes, tires)
- Ride defensively
- Be visible
- Avoid distractions
- Supervise younger children
It is easy to see why kids (and adults) love e-bikes and easy to understand how they represent risks much greater than standard bikes. Parents who would never consider sending their kids out on sidewalks and even residential streets on gas powered motorcycles without safety training and licenses think nothing of their kids riding electric toys that are really motorized scooters.
Read more at: Electric Bikes Are Emerging as Public Health Hazard